Adobe CEO clumsily dodges pricing questions in YouTube 'farce'

If Adobe has any love whatsoever for its non-US customers, it's not great at showing it. The video after the break reveals CEO Shantanu Narayen evading the genuine questions of a Delimiter journalist at a press conference in Sydney. The reporter wanted to know why Adobe's Creative Suite is priced $1,400 higher in Australia than in America, reflecting a geographic disparity that has long vexed Australian customers and lawmakers alike. But instead of answering, Narayen reverted to type and sought to shrug the journalist off with some marketing spiel about an entirely different product -- Creative Cloud -- ultimately leading Delimiter to condemn the whole episode as a "farce."

If we understand Narayen right, he seems to be implying that Australian customers are being charged a high price for traditional boxed software in order to nudge them towards Adobe's subscription-based cloud service instead. Given that the Creative Cloud was itself hugely overpriced in Australia until a sudden and awkward u-turn just a couple of days ago, that sort of argument is hardly likely to win back much affection. However, this older Narayen clip actually might.