Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe. "It's still cheaper to fly from here in Sydney to Los Angeles, buy it there, and come home. By doing that I'd save $601, and I'd get Virgin Australia frequent flyer points, too," wrote Gizmodo Australia's Luke Hopewell. Before answering questions, Mr Narayen predicted price disparity would become a topic of interest among journalists asking questions, and tried to avoid it by repeatedly saying that the future of Adobe was a move towards a cloud-based subscription service. Adobe's move to subscriptions will enable it to charge customers on a month-by-month basis, meaning consumers will eventually no longer be able to pay a once-off fee for their software. In the long-term this will mean Adobe makes more money from consumers. On Wednesday, Adobe announced a price reduction in Australia to its "cloud" subscription-based products, but came under fire from consumer advocates for not cutting the prices of other software that can be paid for once and used forever.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell at Adobe's new Sydney CBD office launch. Mr Narayen said before questions were asked that some of the recent announcements Adobe had made on pricing of its cloud-based subscription services were about continuing "rapid adoption" of it. He said subscriptions was where Adobe saw the future of its Creative Suite products, adding that Adobe was using Australia as the first region in which the company had conducted "effective sort of pricing studies". Communications Minister Stephen Conroy at Adobe's new Sydney CBD office launch. "[It] is a key part of our strategy and it's just one of an ongoing and continuous way in which we continue to look and attract more customers to the [cloud] platform," Mr Narayen said.

But he refused to say why Adobe's traditional Creative Suite products, which many businesses and individuals continue to use, would not also get a reduction in price to make their cost comparable to what the US pays. "The future of the Creative [Suite] is the Creative Cloud and so when we look at how we get that access to customers it's all through Creative Cloud and so that really has to be viewed as what the focus is and so the pricing moves there are very much in line with where we see the future of the company," he said. But that answer wasn't enough for journalists, with one stating Mr Narayen wasn't answering the question. "How can Adobe possibly justify charging up to $1400 more for the exact same software delivered in Australia delivered over the internet with no box copy compared to the US prices?" asked journalist Renai Lemay. Mr Narayen responded by saying that Adobe "really believe[d]" that if you looked at what it had done with the pricing of Creative Cloud it had resulted in "great value" to its customers. "We think that's the future of the company and I think it's a very attractive opportunity right now in terms of pricing."

He added: "I think the message I'm trying to send all of you is that the Creative Cloud's the future of Creative and when you look at the value that customers ... are getting through the Creative Cloud, we just think that that's phenomenal value for our customers." After further prompting to answer the question by Mr Lemay, Mr Narayen said: "All I can say is when we think about the future of what's the best offer for customers ... we think about the Creative Cloud. We think we have a great offering at a great price for customers and the value of that is there." A minder then interrupted further questioning, saying: "So as much as we appreciate the questions I think this opportunity of [Mr Narayen] being here is a chance to also give a talk about the opening of this new office ..." After other unrelated questions, Mr Narayen was again drawn back to pricing. "Can you rule out cutting your prices for other non-Creative Cloud products?" journalist David Ramli asked.

Mr Narayen said: "You know we're always looking at pricing around the world and I think [this] meeting today is all about sharing where we're heading as a company with the Creative Cloud and the Marketing Cloud. "I think we're constantly looking at what's the best way to deliver value to our customers ..." Mr Narayen's comments come after Adobe, Apple and Microsoft were on Monday summonsed to appear before the federal IT pricing inquiry in Canberra on March 22. They have been accused of stonewalling efforts by politicians to figure out why Australians pay so much more than Americans for identical technology products. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said at Thursday's Adobe office launch that he welcomed price cuts Adobe introduced on Wednesday to its Creative Cloud product. He also said he was the one to sign off on the government's federal IT pricing inquiry, which was about finding out "why Australians pay more" generally. Loading

Would you be willing to pay up to $1800 more for software in Australia than in the US? Let us know in the comments. This reporter is on Facebook: /bengrubb