Ontario, CA. A Red State mind that somehow has been shoehorned into a Blue State still a mind with limitations and gaps. Of course you do not understand and naturally fall upon an example that has very little to do with what a CI does. While there are all sorts of differences between automobiles there is nothing like trying to code for a Sony LCD, a cable box, lighting, shades, UPS, "green programming", HVAC, Blu-ray players, HDMI,networks and so on. There is a vast panoply of systems foisted upon me over which I have no control and yet for which my receiving final payment demands I solve. To wrap your mind around this problem requires more then using all ten toes and all ten fingers to count to 20.

Clearly you have never done a real programming job or a large installation. The actual time it takes to code and install a job almost always exceeds the value for these services as line item. I am not, in this instance, even making the case for the time it took to build modules or draw and code the GUI. I am speaking of the known time it takes to perform the data entry and deal with any issues on site.

Let us make this simple for you. If I am paid 7500 to code a system and my hourly rate is 125/hr I am being paid for 60 hours of labor. That gives me somewhere between 6-8 days to do all the data entry and troubles shoot the code. The sort of system I am speaking about here often involves 2-3 days dealing with network issues unrelated to the code but necessary as there are devices sitting on that network with which I must talk. There may be testing of new drivers written for that drive or worse, stupid setup manufacturers impose on you in order to keep chip sets from going to sleep and losing communication.

There is more time lost to setup, addressing, firmware upgrades and code uploads. Finally, you have to solve any installation issues that may have entered the universe. HDMI may not work--thank you Sony. You have to deal with changes where the client originally asked for X but now wants to do Y. But since this involves coding secondary systems such as shades or lights, security or HVAC, you now have to completely redo your GUI, GUI code and control code. Sometimes you write a code work around to solve some physical issue in the system. Emitters fail, serial communication is lost, more network issues, Installation issues such as misterminated wires, mislabeled wires, ground loops, RF issues, WiFi issues, does the cable box support power on numeric or does it require current sensing, interface issues into sub-systems, power issues, HDMI issues, all crop up and need to be solved. IT IS NOT JUST CODE. The system needs to work and often the issues have nothing to do with the code. That firmware you spent hours upgrading now causes broke code that heretofore worked. The client doesn't care if the problem is in the installation, the product or the code. He wants it fixed. That job where 6-8 days are budgeted always takes 14-20 man days. It is known at the time the job is signed that the line item is too small but it is also known that if 21000 were placed on the line item for programming the client would balk. It is a dirty secret that is well known that the true costs of installing the job are paid for out of other line items. The only time this comes to the clients attention is if he ever needs to have his system recoded and there are no other items to subsidize the installation.


There client never pays the real costs to install and program his system. He never pays the first time but if he does have to have the code rewritten it is why he screams. For the first time he comes to terms with the real costs of installing and programming an automation system. Sure there is the issue of intellectual property. Sure there is the issue of copyrights. Sure there is the issue of the time it actually took to prefect a module. Sure there is the issue of the time it took the draw the GUI and code it. Leaving all of that aside, and just accounting for the number of days and hours it takes to complete a job and you discover that the real costs of bringing a system on line are not paid for by the client. Since other parts of the job are underwriting the costs of the installation the client has not paid for the code. He has paid to have a working system. Let us not even bring the R&D aspects of code writing into the equation. Just pay for the actual number of hours it took to make the system work and I'd be more susceptible to Julie's or our friend from Texas' point of view and be less argumentative about turning over the code.

Would that Julie would turn her considerable skills to educating the public about what hoops a CI needs to jump through to make his system work. With falling margins on equipment it is CI profits that are in fact funding many installations.

Alan