Microsoft is our dominate platform, nearly every customer
you will have in the next two years will already own a
PC with the Vista OS and be using it for movies, tv, pictures,
and music.

A lot of passion on this one.

A lot of high-end custom integrators have gone out of
business for this very reason--over-customizing, saying
yes to anything. How do you keep your programmers in check
when it's oh-so-tempting to perfect every little detail
of an interface?

I happen to have Crestron, got to pick any interface I
wanted, and it's nice (guifx). But if the integrator had
come to me and said this is what your interface will look
like, I'd have been fine with that. That's why I went
with Guifx, using the same template that so many integrators
seem to use.

Would I like the design to match my Frank Lloyd Wright-style
mid-century modern home? Sure, but I wouldn't pay a programmer
$100 per hour for the extra effort.

High-end, complete customization is a good business model
for some, but it represents a very small portion of this
industry. The large majority of integrators use less-customizable
products like HAI. That's a swell business model, too,
and shouldn't be pooh-poohed. (ha ha, I said pooh-pooh)

A lot of passion on this one.

A lot of high-end custom integrators have gone out of
business for this very reason--over-customizing, saying
yes to anything. How do you keep your programmers in check
when it's oh-so-tempting to perfect every little detail
of an interface?


High-end, complete customization is a good business model
for some, but it represents a very small portion of this
industry. The large majority of integrators use less-customizable
products like HAI. That's a swell business model, too,
and shouldn't be pooh-poohed. (ha ha, I said pooh-pooh)

I've stood out of this debate as I do not believe in my
ability to predict the future. However, you are now making
a dangerous argument that cannot go unchallenged. Mr.Roddey
has made a convincing argument elsewhere that stripped
down XP can be a capable backbone to a control system
but it must be left alone in the back ground to operate
by itself. It has to be closed down. It needs to be
closed down to applications and viruses. But you are preaching
about putting a MS OS not in the back ground, stripped
down and free from any applications to one that is a quasi-server--but
not quite--and susceptible to every possible virus and
ad-ware attack some Eastern European 15 year old suffering
from anomie can dream up. Of course it's cheap. You've
developed nothing but an application and a skin. But
this is not a car where you have full control of the manufacturing
process. This is a control system running people's homes
and you are suggesting a control system paradigm where
the back-end control system is the same as the front end
DVD/music server?!!! Other than gas and oil what can you
put in a car. If you don't close Windows down you leave
it open to every possible attack known to man. FYI, my
brand new laptop just stopped running crucial software
after 1 week. And you'd leave that system's architecture
unprotected and open to attack?

Even your example of XBox is suspect. That too, is a
relatively closed system, save for the game developers
using the SDU. But you are leaving opened ended Windows,
completely vulnerable to attack, without any systems engineering
for any UI. If this is how you hope to reach the high
end then you will go the way of Phast and C4. Crestron
has already lowered the bar with the Adagio and it's entry
price is half of yours. That includes a pre-engineered
system that takes 15 minutes to program. AMX has made
purchases that suggests that it too will be entering the
entry level system's integration market. These are companies
with both the engineering talent, the marketing power
and the experience. What would have happened to CQC if
Dean Roddey had only the financing to hire a high powered
marketing firm? At least his system makes sense and I
have problems with his system's integration as it is purely
a software based solution that depends on third party
hardware upon which he has no control ( touch panels,
not the PC ).

Everyone wants to go after Red State value consumers.
But I'll promise you this. If your paradigm is to suggest
that the same HTPC or media PC that will act as the front
end source also serve as the back end control then you
are a snake oil salesman. Enterprise servers have a different
topology and Microsoft is even marketing a stripped down
version of these enterprise solutions. So why would you
wish to suggest, what Mr.Roddey has here suggested is
a bad idea, that Mr. and Mrs. RedState, who value reliability
as much as their bank account, follow a typology that
has been proved unreliable? Because you have a horse
in this race? I understand why Best Buy has partnered
with you. They don't wish to commit to the one solution
that works. they'd rather sell a pseudo solution that
doesn't work. The Tweeter model is what will eventually
happen. Centralized integration by programmers for the
national chain, running on a reliable hardware and software.
It may be Lifeware or life support but it will not be
the hardware typology you've suggested.

However good your software application, I will promise
you this. As long as you permit your application to run
on an open source open ended architecture it will fail
as a control system. It will be bogged down by applications
( as in anti-virus ) by DVD burners, by virus and spyware
attacks.

Alan

I'd really like to know where the great margin would come
from on a Samsung Q1 when they are availabe all over the
net for less than a grand. I also find it funny that instead
of one of EI's own wa expensive touchpanel, the VP of
sales uses a cheap third party panel.

The Life|points
are the only high-definition TP currently on the market.
Not only are they the only HD panel out there, they are
also capable of displaying up to 4 HD feeds AT THE SAME
TIME. Certainly this places them in a different category
from the others and justifies a higher price.

Microsoft is our dominate platform, nearly every customer
you will have in the next two years will already own a
PC with the Vista OS and be using it for movies, tv, pictures,
and music. Think about expanding that platform and making
it better and more powerful, rather than trying to sell
against it. You can not convince a lexus owner that there
is anything better and they have the hgihest return buyer
rate of any luxury automobile.

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I did not write the above. I agree that nowhere previously
did you suggest a hardware paradigm but I think it reasonable
to conclude from the above that you expect to deploy your
software into this sort of hardware configuration. Otherwise,
who gives a damn whether you are running XP, Ly nix, or
a proprietary OS? As long as your application is residing
safe and secure in a separate box from the one being used
for "movies, TV, pictures and music" I have little problem
with your point. But no client cares about the OS. He
wants a system that works for a price he is willing to
pay. What you wrote above suggests that you expect to
deploy your application on the front end not the back.
These are very different solutions.

I have not made any derogatory comments re: the price
of your touchpanels, in fact I don't even know what they
cost. However, both AMX and Crestron have offered high
definition panels allowing multiple video feeds for years.

This is a Forum not a "blog" . (Of which the distinctions
between the two you seem to be blurring . ) :)

It is not hairs that are being split.

A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made
in journal style on a particular subject .

A forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding
*discussions* on a particular subject .