Re: Dedicated Z-wave sites?

["Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:je6dne214rfbXxzYnZ2dnUVZ_r-onZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx
>> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:cJSdnUvB1ri3LBzYnZ2dnUVZ_u63nZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx

> How can an end-user evaluate the "goodness" of a component without
> extensive
> experience?  I've had tremendous driver problems with gear from big name
> companies.  When hardware breaks new ground, as is often the case with
> high
> end video cards, it sometimes tales quite a while for even the industry
> giants to ship stable drivers.  I've seen badly set-up machines from Dell,
> HP, Gateway and Compaq and others.
>

I'm failing to understand what you are driving at. The fact that it's
possible for problems to occur means that no one should use computers? If
you are an end user and you don't feel competent to evaluate the components,
then you buy. If you happen to be one of those rare cases where Dell or HP
ships a screwed up configuration, then well that happens. Every company
occasionally blows it. What does that have to do really with automation?

> What do CQ users do when one of the updates or bug fixes that MS is
> pushing
> out all the time breaks their setup?  When that happens, don't your
> clients
> call you?

I don't know of any examples of this so far, other than their occasionally
cranking up security on some things in order to close security holes. This
has, once or twice, caused a particular thing to stop working (access to a
media repository directory.) But it's been very rare that any problems have
occured, partly because of the points I previously made about our rolling
our own where possible.

> What I am trying to say is that if you build/setup a system so
> that there's no web surfing, no frequent SW changes, etc. then you're
> really
> limiting the expansion capabilities of the setup.  In other words, what
> you
> need to do to make Windows run reliable is to keep it in an isolation ward
> after birth and only change things when there's no other choice.
>

This is an automation system, not a daily use web browser. People buy our
product to create automation systems. Most of the 'computers' are, to the
end user, nothing but a touch screen on a wall. They are not for daily use
and are not intended to be. THey have no keyboard because they are kiosk
style touch screens. So this is really a non-issue.

You can run our client tools on a regular computer of course, and people do
that on their home office machines, for instance, to have access to the
automation system from their office. But, it's just client tools. If
anything goes wrong with that machine, it just affects that machine. The
guts of the automation system are in a locked down machine in the closet.

> What would worry be most about your product, if I were in your shoes, is
> that if MS decides it's the wave of the future, they'll just take what
> they
> like and put it in the next edition of media center.  When they decided to
> put networking in Windows, it just about killed Novell dead.   When they
> decide to take on HA/HT integration, the same sort of scenario will play
> out.
>

You have to understand the automation market. It is 'comlexity limited'. MS
could add automation features to MCE if they want. But that's not going to
suddenly make customers able to install all the specialized hardware to
create an automation system. They may well come out with some very
simplified stuff, but that's not at all the market that we are in. There's
just no way that MS is likely to get into the true custom installed
automation market. It's so far off their radar that it's not something I
worry about.

Creating a real automation solution requires a level of technical expertise,
completely outside of the actual device controlling it, that will for the
bulk of people require a custom installer to do the setup. Those custom
installers, while they are of course happy to integrate MCE into the overall
system as a media client, aren't very likely (for the reasons discussed in
this thread) to install a comletely MCE based automation system. Any serious
automation system will have a server component to keep the core automation
control mechanisms away from such daily use/media-playback oriented
machines.

---------------------
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd
www.charmedquark.com