I know of one company who are dealers for both AMX and Crestron. Their decision to use one or the other is dependant on the size of the project (I don't know what criteria these decisions are based on). Large projects are crestron based, smaller ones are AMX. Recently this company has become an ELAN dealer so, they are installing even less AMX installations as Elan's VIA system also works well for the smaller installations.

The point being that, if you are not carrying a smaller or should I say lower cost control system you may want to look at your over all product strategy. IMHO it should be as much as a business decision as a technical decision. I know this is difficult for some technical minded people to understand and it is something that I personally had to deal with years ago, but it makes sense in the big picture scheme of things. However, unfortunately it sometimes boils down to something as simple as which company will give you the time of day.

In addition, you need to know how to program. You can sub out the initial bulk programing, but you need to be able to go on-site and fix problems or make minor s/w changes.

I have been involved with Crestron for about 2 to 3 years now. I also worked with PHAST (man was that a lot of fun-bug city). I have been programming Crestron for about 1 year now. I have done some pretty serious automation jobs with pool, lighting, alarm, shades, HVAC..pretty much the full deal and I have only seen 1 proccessor totally go down. I have seen a couple that just need to be rebooted, but that is a simple phone call with the Client to walk them thru it. That was because of a lighting strike outside the house that I think got back to the pro2 through the Jandy 232 line. We luckily had another processor at the office that I swapped out that same day. But we are trying to remote locate all the Thermostats and Alarm keypads and maybe keep 1 or 2 light switches a room trying to get rid of some wall clutter. I think that descion relies more upon the Builder or the Client but it sure is nice to have control of everything from 1 place.

Or sales guy has been programming for a few years and he knows how all this stuff works so when a Client asks him a techy question he can normally pull a legitimate answer out. I think that builds a lot of trust with clients. Plus he knows how to design the systems right.

I think it is important to have a staffed programmer if the workload warrants it to keep him busy. We are doing some sub out programming that is cool for somebody who just wants to sell 1 or 2 Crestron systems a year or if somebody is not a Crestron dealer but they have a client who wants some automation we can sell the Crestron and they can sell everything else. but it can be hard to provide customer service if a Client wants some changes done and your sub programmer is booked for 2 months. And I can tell ya that if you want a Sub programmer to do most of the work and then give that program to you so that you can do any changes that need to be made...Good luck. Most programmers I know won't want to give that up to anybody...

One guy wants to sub programming out, the next wants it in house. It sounds like preference, not business related.

The guy who wants to sub out the programming wants to do other things that interest him more that he thinks are going to make him more money.

The one who wants to program in house just likes or wants to do it and also realizes that if you can keep a guy busy and bill for time alone, you've got a "profit center" churning out income there.

If you need to make $100 today for a bag of groceries (I know, a small bag) then you can produce it all with labor and not have a capital or inventory investment. To make the same hundred bucks you'd have to spend more in inventory costs and sell what you purchased. I like the idea of turning labor or programming into money.

Isn't that why we install? The equipment *may* be profitable, but the labor is what keeps us alive.

Just my $0.02.