On November 13, 2010 at 16:27, bwaters98 said...
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.
The answer would be to write their own modules for 3rd party systems so they retain control and charge licensing fee for use. That is what a number of others have done and it's a way to keep control while opening up the product for use as it was not intended.
On the other hand, my understanding of Sonos is that it wants to sell its hardware, not merely become a source on someone elses hardware.
Alan
