First, I have been working for Philips for 21 years, now retired!
Philips is a strange company, having a lot of strength, and at the same time it often fails to cash in on it, and let competitors take their market.
When this is said, it is still in my opinon one of the 3 best companies in the consumer electronics market.
Seeing some of the comments from distributers/installers in this thread stating that they are loosing turnover because of the Pronto sold out of other channels, resembles the Movie industry, who put an illegal downloaded movie equal to a lost sale - which is not the case at all.
Same here with the Pronto. The reason I bought it, was that I finally after spending too much USD on poor product found a product which could solve my remote control problems, as I saw the remote controls replicate like rats, needing at this time more than 11 different remotes to operate my home electronics.
If I could only buy the Pronto from an Installer with him installing some software to a price, and I not being able to do it all myself - I WOULD NEVER have bought a Pronto - and I am sure that most of the Hobbyists on this forum will say the same.
So the Pronto lives because we are willing to pay a Professional price for a professional product, knowing that the pricing is as it is, because ot the very limited number of items to be sold. This means that the Cost Price must be higher and we accept.
So forget the streghten of the Distributer/Installer chain if we as hobbyists are Axed, it will not raise their turnover as we all will look for new possibilities and new products, and not forgiving that we have lost several thousand USD in the process.
I send my thanks to Barry and Lyndel for their efforts, as I know how difficult it can be to get in contact with the right people in an organisation as Philips.
