I think that Steve might address a valid point for some companies... those that do not have programming capability built in or have a poor relationship with a programming vendor. If there is a problem with the programming or relationship, then yes, it is overpriced. However, programming is generally a very small fraction of the overall project and where I think that many of the members can find criticism for EI's approach is how light it seems to be in the aspects of an integration project, where it would potentially fail even before one gets to the point where one needs to deploy a program. If you are hiring people that do this type of integration for a living (and have experience), then you will increase your chances of success... however, if you are implying that the limiting factor of competitors' control products is their cost of programming and capabilities, I just don't really see that at a viable statement of fact. I happen to program as a major component of my job, and right now I do not have any significant backlog of jobs... any jobs that are pending have a dependency on some other aspect of the job and not the programming itself.

MS is a tool and it can be implemented to do wonderful things. What is to stop another non-EI dealer from implementing these tools in such a way to give them the same capabilities. It will not be a "1-box" solution, but I see that as irrelevant to the context of quality and capability of product... for Best Buy... a "box" to sell with a fixed "capability" is important, but to those that deliver custom solutions, it does not really matter what the boxes are or how many of them... but the end product. Any of those things that you listed can in fact be accomplished by other products.

I typically deal with Apple products, but don't feel that I am necessarily biased against MS in any way. I think that I have a lot of criticisms, but ones that are valid. When talking about purchased music, MS does not really compete in the market space. The fact is, that it is not an open "standards based" environment. DRM is here for the present and prohibits cross platform compatibility. This fact alone seems to strike a big problem in the plans of any product that relies on WINDRM10 in the form of some MS Media Player in that the scores of iTunes users out there (note that I did not say Apple) will not be able to play their media on your system. Apple has a very healthy envrionment and with new products, is going to do even better. iTunes, Apple TV, Airport Express, XServe RAID for up to 10.5 TB of starage per chassis. Remote diagnostics and control are also very good on the Apple side, as are they on MS, and other vendors also have solutions that work very well for the demand from dealers either stand alone or in conjunction with a solutions partner.

I don't partake in the marketing gimmick that EI has found the flaw in the "state of custom installation" and have fixed it by introducing a revolutionary box that is unlike any other system out there. Any truths that you can make via technicalities are not so substantial when evaluated in context. I'm sure there are some valid pros to the system, so lets talk about those, or... prove me wrong. My first question, how are you going to enlist the assistance and form a partnership with the professionals that are currently experts in this field? We are always learning new technologies and changing as required by the march of technology. We are certainly not the "old guard" from which EI is breaking out of. The suspicion that I think many feel on this board, is that by employing BB and these other yet to be named integration partners - is that the field of experts is going to be BB salesmen, or specialized BB teams, which is fine if they put the training into such resources, but most of us seem to doubt this... and rather see EI attempting to bypass the members of the community of custom installers and integrators.