Dell Price Increase in the UK?

Hi,

I hold an account with Dell UK and purchase around 30-50 Dell Latitudes a year, currently E6400/10 models. I also purchase my servers and most of my software with Dell.

When I tried to get a few more laptops recently, my account manager told me that Dell UK had to increase their prices by 5% a few months ago ... and by another 5% by mid July this year. She explained that with the statement below:

"I am writing to inform you of an intended price increase across our Commercial product range from July 19th 2010.

Dell’s priority is always seeking to provide best value to our customers. In line with the rest of the industry, our component costs are priced in US dollars and the recent strengthening of the US Dollar versus the Euro, Sterling and other currencies in the EMEA region has had a direct impact on these costs.

Whilst this currency change has affected the whole industry, we have worked diligently over recent months to minimise the number of price increases for our customers. However, from July 19th 2010, it will be necessary for us to further raise our list prices across our commercial product ranges of desktops, laptops, servers and storage for our customers.

We continue to monitor the currency situation closely and will of course update our pricing strategy if we see the currency situation improve."

I cannot find anything about that on the Internet, apart from memory price increases across the industry. A large increase like that would have been noticed and made the news? Is there any other Dell UK account holders who have been told this sad story? I am a bit sceptical ...

Thanks for your help