I have been a Sonos dealer since the begining and I have also wanted 3rd party control. I talked to a Sonos employee at a show this year and made a point to ask about it. The answer I was given was one that I can agree with to a point. Sonos has great tech support, very little voice prompt menus and short hold times. And all support is based in the US. It's not cheap to run that kind of tech support and service dept. When you start opening your product to talk to other peoples hardware who may not subscribe to the same standards or want to have the extra expense, what happens if people that need the help tend to take the path of least resistance. So your brand X remote isn't controling the sonos right. Are you going to call brand X and sit on hold, get guy in India and elevate through 3 teirs of support or are you going to call Sonos, where they are on the phone in minutes if not seconds and have them troubleshoot some elses hardware? Most people will take the second option and that is all on sonos' dime. With the advent of the ipad, their role will be greater in the coming months and years in the automation industry, pretty soon everyone will have something on that platform and Sonos already does. I think their theory now is to stick it out, soon enough it won't be an issue.