Bausone: I always say that when the U.S. gets the flu we get pneumonia. Then the U.S. gets cured and we still have pneumonia. This year has
been a bit rough but it’s coming back. We also had a bit of a security problem so a lot of our customers just flew away from Mexico. But everybody is coming back now. It looks like a very promising 2014. In 2013, we’ve had a lot of commercial jobs because the residential jobs have not been there yet. But they’re coming back; so it’s looking good now, for the residential jobs.

We’re also seeing the same trend, not as much as you have in the States, where everybody wants to use just the tablet. But we see it as the interface to the end user. You can have an iPad, or whatever tablet or device and then control the rest of your system from there. We use different platforms for the infrastructure, but at the end of the day the end user as well wants to use his smartphone to control his whole system.

Delano: This year is beginning to turn a corner positively. At the manufacturer level, many are still operating cautiously in terms of forecast and committing investment dollars to new products. Companies are being more specific and strategic in their roadmaps. But for the most part, manufacturers are finding the majority of their customers, whether they’re distributors or technology professionals, are reporting some positive growth.

The areas I see a lot of opportunities is the demand for more wireless solution devices that support streaming content, media streamers and so forth. One of the things I see happening is to bring some of these wireless streaming solutions away from being a master or centralized system in a home to more like in-room systems. That allows dealers to perhaps scale the cost of their jobs a bit differently, and bring streaming services, and amplification and loudspeakers directly into individual rooms. We’re seeing a number of manufacturers introduce products like that.

The other trend is there’s an incredible interest in video becoming higher definition. There’s a lot of marketing talk about 4K out there. The truth is there’s not a lot of 4K content that the hardware can support. But it’s causing consumers to be interested in is more video. It’s an opportunity for this industry, even more so than 3D, which was difficult to implement.

Let’s continue with technology, drilling down more into some of the service offerings that are transforming the market and creating opportunities.

van Zuiden: Whether it’s wired or wireless, streaming has really exploded the head-end rack. There’s not much left at the head-end in the home anymore, except for whole-house amplification, some gateway routing and switch equipment. This trend is driven by consumption now based on things like Netflix and Pandora, and while that’s all over the top they’re still looking to watch the 49ers game and the Academy Awards through traditional cable or satellite. All of the boxes that used to be in the head-end have been exploded into server-client boxes so that you might have one master server with a lot of thin clients that render that content to local TV.

We’re basically seeing the entire house going to a model where the localized equipment for viewing and listening is in a given room. There is only some amplification at the head-end, and a lot of content has moved into the cloud. That’s kind of the infrastructure we’re looking at, and smart tablets and phones are controlling all those devices.

You might think that’s not necessarily a good thing for the custom installer. I look at it as although we may sell a bit less equipment, we certainly don’t sell less wire. These things are still as complicated as ever. In fact, what makes it really challenging today is we’re now putting a huge burden on the network infrastructure of the home. We’re asking that infrastructure to carry multiple HD signals from TV, cameras, audio signals, control signals. We’re looking at many more of the managed networks of the enterprise and the managed wireless-control systems of the enterprise, and recognize that $1,000 network infrastructure isn’t going to cut it but a $10,000 to $15,000 one will. What we lost in AV distribution hardware we’re picking up in networking hardware.

Bausone: I remember when the iPod first came out and everyone thought this industry was going to go out of business. Then all of a sudden we saw a bunch of products and services related to that, and people then said, “I want to build the infrastructure for this.” With these cloud-based services and this new trend coming in, we need to build the infrastructure for that as well. It’s just an opportunity of doing more things. We can look at it as a bad thing or a good thing. And it’s a great thing, actually.

Delano: These rapid technology advancements are making it easier for a consumer to enjoy more experiences in their home, and creating new business opportunities for home-technology professionals and manufacturers. We’re not limited to just audio and video and system integration any longer. Now the industry is becoming much more a technology infrastructure industry. Networking is hugely important. The skillset companies in this industry have to learn and master is getting better.

Where does security fit into your businesses and that of the typical CEDIA-type business? Are security-related services and products being installed or provided by some of these companies?

Bausone: We do the intrusion alarm and CCTV, usually only as part of an integrated system, not as a standalone. We’re already in the home; we’re already the digital partner for the homeowner, so we’ll do the whole package for them. We do it as an integrated system with the rest of the electronic systems, preferably if it ties into the lighting or the sound or something else.

van Zuiden: We’re the same way. There’s kind of two camps: those that do it themselves and those that don’t. The ones that don’t, like us, partner with someone else because every home requires it. We just don’t have the expertise and don’t want to take on the liability of those systems. But we have to integrate all those systems and all the other subsystems we provide.

We are always looking for an interface back to a smart tablet so we have something that can communicate to that system via smart device, or have some level of automation so we can combine it with other feature sets. [With security] it’s not much different than how we work with gate companies or pool companies. We’re bridging those subsystems with our interfaces and our network infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean we’re in the pool or gate business.

Bausone: Some providers will do their own security, but not everybody is an expert or has the monitoring model. From the other side, some security companies will want to start doing audio/video. So there’s a great opportunity to partner on different aspects of technology.

van Zuiden: It truly is a partnership because inevitably we’re all starting to get into this muddy, gray area. If it’s security, who’s going to do the cameras? We do a lot of IP cameras and the security guys are doing IP cameras. So we can get on a job where the builder brings in his own security guy and he’s talking about all these IP camera things, versus the builder bringing in us as his team that includes the security and pool guys we’ve worked with. As a team, we know exactly where we start and stop on each job. But when these things are thrown together with people we don’t know, we still have to feel each other out and figure out who’s going to do what.

Editor-in-Chief Scott Goldfine has spent more than 15 years with SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION. Fol
low him online via the Under Surveillance blog at securitysales.com/blog.

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