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Follow UsAt a time when the Indian market is booming with IT activity, Sybase — a
global provider of dataÂÂbase technology for enterprises is 'overcharging'
its set of Indian customers by over 30 percent as compared to the global price
list on its website.
According to the company's website, the price of one of its most popular
products — PowerÂbuilder enterprise edition is Rs 1,37,000 charged globally.
Interestingly, the same product is available through its distributor Redington
India, at around Rs 1,80,000 within the Indian region. The price difference
comes to be around 30 percent.
“We have different pricing policies for different geog-raphies. It is not
only India, but countries like China and Japan where there is a price difference
of 80 percent and 90 percent respectively,” informed Kumar Mitra, Head -
Channels, Sybase India.
When asked to give a reason to this disparity, Mitra explained that it is
because of 'certain level of localization and tax policies by the government
of India' that the company has to go for an increased pricing policy. “We
have to do a lot of localization for our products. Also there are some taxing
issues involved with selling our products, so all this contributes towards
increasing the price according to this geography,” he added.
After having been forced to sell Sybase products at an increased price, the
channel community is feeling cheated by the company. “This is not good for the
overall industry. We might not say it, but the fact is that we are cheating our
end-customers by overcharging them,” adds a New Delhi-based software
reÂseller on condition of anonymity.
It was only after January 1, 2006, that Sybase had further increased its
pricing policy. “We review our pricing policy regularly and we have increased
the Indian pricing by 30 percent after the January review. Earlier it was 10
percent,” Mitra informed.
According to Redington India, Sybase is loosing its existing customer base
due to lack of support and technical expertise in the market.
Zia Askari