Who thinks its fair for crestron to tell its dealers you can't sell competing products?

I believe car manufacturers have had similar rules for years

Toyota, in our area, won't let you sell Lexus and Toyota unless they have a separate locations and they make both! As a business, I think it's totally up to you who you sell to. If Crestron doesn't want you to sell competing products, I feel it's their prerogative.

It should be sell(live) and let sell(live)!!!

No manufacturer should be allowed to tell a dealer what they can sell or not. They may have several different categories of clients, not all wanting this or that. I would dump ANY manufacturer that tried and forced my hand. This sounds like a manufacturer is getting beat in a particular category and would rather be heavy handed than do what it took to compete. Low in my books. Face it, if your a fan, you won't care.

Like it or not company's seem to be able to do things like this. My brother in law works for Coke and he is not allow to drink any soft drink made by any other company.

I see both sides . Crestron should let there systems beat out their competitors and not force it . But doing 2 crestron systems in row is alot easier than doing a crestron system and then a savant back to back .

This is pretty funnny coming from a righty. Are you saying that the big scary government should tell Crestron how to do business? And that Crestron shouldn't have the right to choose who they do business with?

To be clear here...Crestron isn't telling the dealer what they can or cant sell. Crestron is telling them that if they choose to sell competing products that Crestron is not interested in doing business with them.

I didnt even realize that crestron sued a dealer, really really low IMO.

Yeah they may of had programming issues or other reasons to switch to savant but for a company to dictate who we sell is just downright low and shitty.

IMO its crestron not knowing how to deal with competition so they sue to scare others from trying make automation platform. The millions spent by crestron and savant over this could have done some good and helped R&D.

Yeah savant started it but crestron took it to a whole new level suing the dealer.

I think this is more about marketing their high end brand. It isn't like the crestron vs savant thing. Toyota doesn't want their $35k camry within walking distance of it's $75k counterpart. People might start looking at the loaded camry thinking "i could save $25-35k by getting the toyota".

Look at it from another angle. If crestron shouldn't be allowed to decide who they sell to, for any reason they wish, should you be allowed to decide if you want to take a client on or not, or if you want to fire a client that is a pain in your ass?

There could be another reason. The original Toyota distributor is in Texas. And I believe they are the only independent distributor still left in the nation. They still get a piece of every Toyota in several states, even though the cars are not imported any more. This may have something to do with that distributor not getting a piece of Lexus.

Are we are still talking about the couple of year old lawsuit where Crestron counter-sued Savant and also sued one of their former dealers for flipping customers via misleading information? [Link: cepro.com]

Originally i was bashing Crestron until i learned more about what was happening. They were bringing clients in who were interested in Crestron and then making false claims about Crestron not working with apple products and being outdated etc so that they could convince people to go with Savant. The dealer settled with Crestron so it seems like they were at least guilty of breaching their dealer agreement.

Honestly guys...why would anyone want to sell multiple control systems? I get it if you are talking URC and Crestron or RTI and Savant...you want to try to compete in both ends of the market. But Savant and Crestron? Why? It's hard enough keeping up with the changes with one company.

I do think it is hard to sell both since what happens if a client tells you they want your best system. I install both and love one of them and hate the other .People walk thru the door wanting savant and love it But crestron has things savant can't compete with just yet. So you need to sell both.

I look at it as if your dating 2 girls at the same time you don't tell Them

I agree, at one point in time we were dealers for AMX, Savant, Crestron, Control4, and URC all at the same time for about 2 years. Way too hard to keep up with everything.

When the dust settled we ended up Crestron, Control4, and URC.

Back to the original post, they may say that you can't sell a competitors product, but that is not set in stone. They signed us up as dealers even though we already were dealers for AMX and Savant, even though they had that policy at that time.