An online petition at the 10 Downing Street government "e-petitions" web site started by Paul Milne has requested that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair put pressure on Microsoft for the huge price difference between the UK/US retail version of Windows Vista, specifically the Ultimate version of which an example is given.
The petition reads:
"There is a huge difference in the price that people in the US and the UK are paying for Windows Vista the new Microsoft Operating System. As an example of this, in the UK a full copy of Vista Ultimate would cost you £350, in the US it would cost you £195. The US version of Vista is exactly the same as the UK version. There is no difference. Therefore I can see no reason for there to be such a huge difference in prices between the UK and the US other than Microsofts belief that the UK customers will pay more than their US counterparts. I ask people to sign this petition in the hope that the Prime Minister will bring pressure to bear on Microsoft over their pricing as it is my belief they are simply overcharging the people of the UK and therefore are ripping us off."At the time of posting, the petition has mustered 182 signatures with a deadline set for April 20th 2007. It has to be noted that Blair emailed an official response to over 1.7 million people just two days ago regarding another petition started on the government website. So who knows how far this can go.