Is SUN aware of internet information flow?
Here's my thoughts about SUNs training/certification strategy in a global internet-connected world.
I hope for some interesting feedback, and my post is not meant to be an angry rant. I like SUN, and think they've created a lot of nice products and technologies.
I have mostly programmed in J2ME, and wanted to get a broader understanding of Java, so I went to investigate the options and found SCJA to be a good starting point.
One way of preparing is by buying the CDJ-110A CD-ROM course. The price tag is $635.
BUT, the website says I can only buy this, if I live in the US, so I checked the Danish page. The price is 5400 DKK, which equals $975. Please note that it's the exact same kit, it is not translated or anything. Hmmm, this is strange. So I checked a few other products and countries:
CDJ-110A (CD-ROM training):
Denmark: $975
Germany: $830
Sweden: $530
United States: $635
WJB-110A (Web-based training):
Denmark: $830
Germany: $400
Sweden: $770
United States: $530
CX-310-019 (SCJA Exam):
Denmark: $380
Germany: $280
Sweden: $305
United States: $100
Now, I fail to understand how a company like SUN, which transcends national borders, can have such a strange pricing policy. It seems like the company allow the sales people in each country to run amok and set prices as they feel like(1). This, more than anything, shatters the illusion that SUN is "one unified company" out to serve the customers.
Did SUN expect that prospective students would not realize the "rip-off" taking in place in their own country, when the prices in other countries are readily available from any computer connected to the internet? Or did SUN expect prospective students simply not to care?
For now, I've emailed SUN Denmark, to find out if they can match their colleagues in the states. If they can't, I'll just buy the web-based training from the German website, or the CD-ROM from the Swedish website. For some even more strange reason, there doesn't seem to be anything preventing me from ordering the material from a different country's website.
Best regards,
Anders
(1) Oracle did the same at some point, the result being that a lot of US companies bought their licenses in Brazil
[2345 byte] By [
avekodera] at [2007-11-27 8:54:06]
While I can definately understand your annoyance with the differences in pricing there could be many factors that lead to it such as :
different laws regarding media, importing taxes, tarrifs etc. Government controlled prices, local conditions, prices were set and aren't updated to reflect current currency values etc etc. Granted it could also be that they simply set it up not caring about the variance in price, but I would suggest you contact sun (which you have already done) and find out what their response is. I would be interested in the response as well.
In response to the oracle comment I wonder if oracle could refuse service for improperly ordering a product - (Granted I can't see them going out of their way to piss off their customer base but it wouldn't be the first time a large corporation did self damage ).
Buying a certification training course seems like a mediocre way to learn other aspects of the language anyway. I mean, you'll be exposed to a wide variety of information, but from the perspective of training for a test, and the training materials may assume that you basically already know the material and are only trying to formalize your knowledge for the test.
There are thousands of books on many different aspects of Java. Just buy one at a bookstore. I'm going to guess that there's a website www.amazon.dk you can use. Let's see...
Well, it redirects to www.amazon.co.uk for some reason, but since you're all EEC and you seem to communicate in English well, it's probably fine.
And checking Google Maps, it seems that Denmark and Britain are only about 1000km apart. Why, you're practically around the corner from each other! Besides, I'll bet Amazon would ship from the nearest distribution centre, which may actually be in Denmark. Why, you'll be studying Java in no time.
Aknibbs:
There is no difference between Denmark, Germany and Sweden in terms of tariffs, import taxes and similar, since they're all part of the EU.
The response I got from Sun was a bit vague. Basicly what they said was that the difference was related to "production cost" (I didn't bother to ask them how this works, since the media is not customized to each country) and "country differences" (which translated is: Danish companies are in general willing to pay more).
I agree with you on Oracle :-)
paulcw:
I have decided to read a couple of books on Java instead. I have ordered a lot of books from Amazon.co.uk in the past, so it is nothing new to me. Play.com is cheaper though, nowadays.
INTERESTINGLY though, a couple of days after I posted this on the board, the prices was magically updated on each of the country shops, so they're now more or less on the same level. Perhaps Sun woke up.
> If you think taxes are the same between EU countries
> you're sorely mistaken.
> If you think Sweden is an EU country you're even more
> mistaken.
Hey! When did we leave EU? We are still having SEK as currency but that doesn't mean that we aren't part of EU.
Taxes are different taxes between the countries within EU. EU also has stupid laws that makes it cheaper for me to order writable dvds from e.g. Germany, and it's even cheaper if I order them to a German address and forwards them from there to Sweden (I don't have to pay Swedish VAT (25%) in that case)
Kaj
kajbja at 2007-7-12 21:12:52 >
