Cloud company defends higher European pricing than Britain or US

CLOUD COMPUTING company Salesforce.com has found itself at the centre of a controversy over pricing as it emerged that Irish and other European customers are being charged more than their counterparts in the US and Britain.

The discrepancy was highlighted by Irish website IrishDev.com. In a statement to the website, Salesforce.com’s vice-president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) marketing Tim Barker put the company’s position in simple terms.

“Everything from your last Windows upgrade to your favourite iTunes song will cost more in Europe compared to the US,” he said.

“The cost of doing business in Europe is higher.”

Salesforce.com currently offers a version of its Force.com cloudcomputing service for free. However, the edition that allows users to run unlimited applications costs €80 a month a user in European markets, including Ireland. The same service costs $75 in the US, about €55 at current exchange rates.

In Britain, the company is charging £50, or €59.

There are similar price differences in other products offered by Salesforce.com.

Its cloud-based sales application, Sales Cloud, costs €135 a user a month for the enterprise version, compared to $125 (€92) and £85 (€100).

The basic version of the sales service can work out up to one-third cheaper in regions outside Europe.

The cost of doing business here is an issue Irish consumers have heard blamed many times for higher charges.

However, the company refused to elaborate further.

When contacted yesterday, a representative from the company’s EMEA PR department said she could not act as a spokeswoman for the company, although she added Salesforce.com would not add further to the statement already issued to IrishDev.

The higher cost of doing business in Europe has not put the company off investing here.

Salesforce.com has its European corporate sales headquarters in Ireland, based in Sandyford, Dublin.

The company last month announced it would create more than 100 jobs in Dublin, adding to its existing workforce of almost 300.

The company said it was recruiting to meet new business demands and facilitate its continued expansion in Ireland.

It has offices in California, where its worldwide corporate headquarters are located, and operations in Australia, Asia, Canada and a number of European countries.

The company will announce its third-quarter 2011 results next week.

Its last quarterly results showed total revenue was $394 million, up 25 per cent on the same period a year earlier.