Brexit: The changes in UK so far

The year 2016 has been massive for the UK and the signing of the official Brexit Bill will trigger the Article 50 (EU notification of withdrawal bill). Politicians haven’t yet agreed to the terms of the exit and neither have the trade deals begun, yet an observable change in UK has started already.
From hardware, design, science to app development companies in UK, visibly, businesses and corporates are gearing up for the big change. Briefly, Brexit had its impact on technology.

Source: Computer Weekly
Source: Computer Weekly

Here are the 5 major changes in UK so far, post the Brexit decision:

  1. Apple surges prices for hardware and mobile apps:

The value of UK Pounds has fallen relative to the USD, which seems to have triggered price fluctuations in a lot of Apple hardware. The MacBook Pro launched with an OLED Touchbar had seen no change since 2013 but has seen the highest bump since the announcement of Brexit by £300 finally priced at £2999. The prices for MacMini also rose by £100.

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The price rise is not just in the hardware, but also hitting the mobile apps. App development companies in UK are therefore more likely to profit from the app development business than ever before. The prices of apps are tentative of rising by about 25%, with apps both big and small to be hit. An app that currently costs 79p will cost 99p; while the one that costs £1.49 will cost £1.79 and so on.

  1. Adobe expands grounds in UK

Adobe- the leader in creation of “multimedia and creativity software products” is all set to build a sales and marketing office in London that will focus on areas including Europe, Middle East and Asia. Garrett Ilg, EMEA of Adobe said in an interview- “We have a big worldwide view and (Brexit) didn’t cause anybody to have a second thought.”

  1. ARUP, London based engineering firm laid-off staff

The leading firm, in lieu of fears for Brexit to limit the amount of work available, has cut at least 90 jobs, which constitutes 2% of their UK based employees, 4% if which is their London based staff.

Following the claims, the company spokesperson said-

“UK is operating in a period of uncertainty and the firm wishes to ensure long term business health.”

  1. ARM Holdings acquisition by Softbank

The Japanese Telecoms firm Softbank recently acquired ARM Holdings- a British Multinational Semiconductor and Software Design Company with headquarters in Cambridge, UK; for £24 Billion in cash! The acquisition is being considered as the largest ever acquisition of a EU Tech Company.

One of the major clients of ARM is Apple with even iPhones using one or more chips licensed with ARM.

Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi foundation calls the deals a “fantastic thing” and was earlier even quoted as saying that this is a much needed reminder that “Brexit isn’t the end of the world.”

The critics however call the deal “opportunistic” and was potentially completed cheaper by billions of pounds.

  1. Price rise in Microsoft Products

Microsoft raised the prices of its cloud services and enterprise software to realign them closer to European price levels. The prices of the on-premises enterprise software prices have risen by about 13%, while those of most enterprise cloud services prices saw a hike by 22%.

Sergejs Cuhrajs, the Social Media and Marketing Manager at Microsoft wrote in a post that “harmonisation” price changes already happened in April 2016 with the Norwegian krone and Swiss franc.

“For business customers, these changes will not affect existing orders under annuity volume licensing agreements for products that are subject to price protection.”

The price change will result in a profit making higher than expected through cloud and enterprise software alone. There is little change in the hardware prices as well, ranging between 11-15%. In case of indirect sales, it is the vending outlets that will determine the final prices.

Brexit is certain to change the world- for good or for bad, we’ll find out.

Guilty of Gluttony!

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