Any one ever deal with a commercial network with multiple Vlans? Rare is it that these are not being installed at the same time I'm installing my system. Rare is it that I don't lose considerable time to making that network work, even if there is a professional IT involved. These networks are complicated to set up.

In so far as the business model is concerned I agree. But since we are not selling equipment priced at 1 dollar or 10 dollars per unit we have to deal with sticker shock.
Moreover, this business model has been grafted on to an older "salon" business model and as control systems became the sole remaining profit center it has continued. The great audiophile salons saw custom installation as an other form of box moving.

It is not that I cannot charge my hourly rate it is that I cannot bill for the real time it takes to install and program a system, unless I am willing to lower the cost of other parts of the proposal. I am not writing anything anyone else in this industry does not know. Since you are not in the industry you deductively reason that it cannot be accurate. As in the case where you called the rationalist philosopher Descartes an existentialist you are unfortunately wrong here. I am charging what the market will bare and I am funding the job out of the entire job, not merely a single line item. I am continuing to function on a net profitability of 12 per cent which is typical of most small businesses. The client does not pay for the software but for the job. Rare is it that labor and programming costs are accurately reflected in a contract. Since the client has not paid for the software but for the job to be completed he ought not to get said software without paying for it. The client has not paid for the software. He has not paid for the installation. He has paid for the entire job as a whole, including wire, materials, equipment, engineering, project management, documentation, labor and programming. I make my profit from the entire job. Labor, from which programming is a part, is a loss leader. The point is that becuase it is not paid for directly the client has no intrinsic right to its ownership but a right to use it on the job I installed for him

I don't wish to derail this thread any more with side issues such as managerial professionalism but the fact is most of us in this industry are not MBAs and cannot afford to add professional management to our business model. I do not have the control that lots of other businesses have nor do I have the budgets. The equipment we install requires more sophisticated data networks but we, unlike business, do not always get to dictate all functional requirements or have full time staff on site.

I am sorry you don't see it but it doesn't make it less true. I have salespukes who do not know how many serial ports are contained on the processors they sell. They do not know and I suspect they are proud of not knowing that a Graphik Eye requires a switch leg to have its neutral in that electrical box. I have customers who have no clue what it takes to install these systems but they have finite budget limitations.

My choice is to leave the business and that is not an acceptable choice. So I, as does every CI funds under funded aspects of a job from equipment sales. And if a client continues not to pay for my service calls I don't make any more calls. But you'd tell me I am holding the code hostage.

What does happen on occasion is that a CI firm will send the client a bill for 100k in labor and programming. It then gets negotiated down to 5 or 10 cents on the dollar. Commercial and residential jobs are very different. Corporate jobs have budgets but they are still other people's money. Perhaps you have paid attention to the recent news about Citibank and its expenditures, bonuses and executive compensation. But once you work in residential you are being paid with after tax dollars and there is no consultant to persuade the client that programming is a crucial line item that really does have the cost contained in the proposal. Don't take this to mean that commercial jobs do not have their own issues or that consultants are a great innovation.

You may wish to half my hourly rate but the rate is specified. You have never heard a client say " if I have to pay 21,000 for programming then I don't want the system."

Do I want to lose a sale or find a way to pay for that time in other ways?

I am not suggesting there are no competing economic pressures from other businesses. I am suggesting that I do not have an economy of scale. I am suggesting that selling big ticket issues places a limitation on what I can charge, irrespective of the profitability of that item. I am suggesting that the CI business is indeed predicated upon a business model that is no longer valid. These issues come to view most critically on mid to large jobs, where installation time is at a premium, but they are present on every job. If my contact says clearly that I am responsible only to program and install the items enumerated in the contract I will have a fight with the client about not installing or programming displays they bought which are not present in the contract. I will either have to chose to install them without cost, negotiate some reduced rate, or forgo my final payment. I cannot resort to the courts as a. I am a corporation and can be a pro see litigant, the matter is too large for small claims and to small for a lawyer.

Again, you bring up smoking guns that have no relation to reality. If you are in jail or about to get a divorce you have little choice but to pay a lawyer his retainer. There is always someone who will do the job cheaper and there is never the fear or time factor to alter the power relationship. Not till we get to an argument about the code does the balance of power shift ever so slightly. You are correct to shake your head but it doesn't change the business realities nor the fact that the contractual price for labor and programming never reflect the full costs of what it takes.

If I let you purchase it I still have to control it I am in purgatory. I am aware of it. Others in this board have said as much. You don't know. You cannot believe. You call it illogical but, pray, please point out where I have been illogical. You cannot believe that the business model is irrational. Fine. But the fact is this is the business model and the client does not pay directly for the labor and installation of just about any system installed does not suggest that this is not the underlying business model of just about every firm.

I am for education and sunlight finding its way to all matters. But if Julie is going to add this fear to all of the others she might also do the CI ( and client ) a favor an illuminate this unreal reality. Clients never pay in full for the labor and programing it takes to install their job. They pay for a part of it and the rest comes out of profit on other parts of the job.

Alan