Zap, this isn't a should/shouldn't issue. Dealers/Installers cannot compete with Internet sales on price. Their perception - which is probably true - is that they are losing business to discounters. They are demanding that manufacturers give them protection. The manufacturers are between a rock and a hard spot. On the one hand, they would like to maximize sales volume, on the other, they worry about retaining volume sales dealers. URC allowed its MX-3000, which it billed as an installer product, to be sold everywhere. As a result many of its dealers dropped the product and transferred loyalty to another company (e.g. RTI) that provided tighter protection. Now URC has made the product a true dealer-only product in the hope that it will regain the customers it lost.

Unfortunately, makers of programmable remotes don't know much about channel marketing. Most companies who make technology-based products have learned how to structure their product mix, customer support, nomenclature, pricing and distribution such that they can sell into different markets without angering one channel or another.

I think that the problem is exacerbated in the remote market by a perception that the prosumer market isn't big enough to worry about. That may be true.