As the pound continues to plunge in value against the dollar following the UK's decision to leave the EU, there has been a volley of price increase announcements from major IT companies.
Microsoft have announced that prices of their locally-run software will increase by 13%, and prices of their cloud based services will increase 22%. This includes the popular Office 365 suite. While this only applies to new customers at first, it will only be a matter of time until these rises are applied to existing accounts.
Apple have also announced similar increases to their products. This applies to both its just-announced Macbook update, and existing laptops like the Macbook Air. The recently lauched iPhone 7 was also more expensive than the equivalent previous versions on launch.
This news arrives after companies like Dell, Cisco and Asus having already announced hefty increases. As the pound has devauled considerably since these announcements were made back in July, it's quite likely that these companies will have to increase prices even further.
The IT industry in the UK is particularly susceptible to price flucutations against the dollar, as so much hardware and software is valued in dollars. That then gets converted to local currency at the current exchange rate. Due to the quick obsolescence of hardware, it does not make sense to stockpile in large quantites. Therefore, changes in the exchange rate are reflected in the pricing very quickly.