Curious Labs and EGISYS jointly established the worldwide pricing system. The result was that we are selling Poser 5 to a similar price to the distribution/distributors worldwide (USA, ASIA, EUROPE, AFRICA,...). Due to currency risks we had to built in a "security zone" (you might remember the time when 1 Euro was only 86 US Cents) of around 7%. The sales prices in the European countries are established by the distribution channels finally and therefor are a matter of competition. In Germany e.g. there are already offers of far less than 489 + VAT. Under European law it is simply illegal to try to enforce similar pircing - there is no such thing like price maintenance in the software market. The distributors are more important in Europe than in the US if it comes to support, delivery and availabilty of software products. Only a small part of software sales in Europe are direct/mailorder sales. Without distributors it would be undoable for a company like us to deliver product and give support to customers that are speaking Finnish, Turkish, French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, ....and to leave Europe: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindu, .... This problem exists not only with software products in Europe, e.g. I can buy a Mercedes in Denmark up to 30% cheaper than in Stuttgart, Germany, where the car is manufactured... and it is cheaper in the USA as well. I assure you that our commitment to Europe and the European customers is very strong and together with our partners we hope to strengthen our European community. I hope that I was able to explain some of the reasons and give some answers although Im not a native English speaker. Thanks for your ongoing support for Poser. Wolfgang EGISYS AG