Re: Need help for Engineering Management project

[clay.maffett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

First of all, thank you to everyone who has posted thus far on this
topic.  I have learned a lot by following the discussion my first
little post ignited, and I guess I'll use an outline-style response to
summarize everything I'd like to say:

1) This has indeed all been for "homework," but in a completely
legitimate way.  As I stated on my first post, this Eng Management
class is cumulative, and each week we have a "Technology Strategy
Assessment" of about 6-8 questions that we must complete and append to
the previous weeks' responses.  Initially, in order to satisfy two or
three of the said questions, my group was supposed to contact or set
up interviews with people involved with different companies that we
believe have know-how in the technologies the iBode would utilize.  As
a last-minute-of-class shot in the dark, I was - perhaps by fate -
drawn to the third link on my Firefox/Google homepage: Groups.  I
searched for "home automation," clicked on the first link it produced,
and created a new post.  That first post was a hastily modified
version of the email we had been sending out to different people, and
I didn't really expect to have much luck.  I was wrong.

2) Sorry about the whole Google Group / Usenet mixup.  As I said
before, I had never investigated Google's Group function, as I assumed
it was no more than a place for people with varying interests to
establish a "Group" so that other people with similar interests could
join in, and everyone is happy.  As is often the case, I
underestimated Google and did not realize that Groups was actually a
well-conceived and -executed online archive and news reader for
Usenet.  Usenet was born before I was; I know what it is and just
didn't realize what Google Groups actually did.  Sorry, Bill.

3) We have modified our initial plan according to much of the advice
you have all given.
a) Apple is still our company, and iBode is still the product.  We
have abandoned the notion of using a currently available protocol but
are still entertaining the idea of buying out or hiring software and/
or electrical engineers with experience in home automation from other
companies because Apple obviously doesn't have them.  Apple could
develop their own communications protocol within OSX to operate the
system (and take note from Zigbee/Z-wave).  We are assuming it would
be a combination of both wireless and wired data transmission.
b) Although Apple hates partnering up, they have recently developed
partnerships with Intel and Cingular (not too shabby) and it is
absolutely feasible for them to buddy up with Home Depot and GE and
Brinks to create peripherals (from lights to faucets to alarms, etc)
for the iBode system.  Where there is money, there is motivation.  Go
to http://www.smarthome.duke.edu/ if you haven't yet and check out who
is running the show.
c) All of the regulatory issues you have noted have already been
considered by my group.  If anything, energy management will be
improved by home automation.  What if you could set energy quotas for
your family's expenditures?  And then pay the bills online rather than
through the mail?  Construction codes and the like would be met
because the iBode is a system that is installed when the house in
being built, not after.  As I'm sure everyone in this newsgroup knows,
it's hard to teach an old house new tricks.  If iBode is integrated
into society to the degree that we would like, regulatory codes would
have to be rewritten to compensate.  If you make a product that people
want, they will have it.  Whatever bridges that must be crossed will
be crossed.

	4) iBode is not impossible, impractical, or any of the other
adjectives some of you nay-sayers have been throwing out.  If
anything, my naivety is exactly what the home automation needs a
larger dose of.  Some of you guys are so jaded by watching the HA
market flounder year after year among a community of talented
engineers and do-it-yourselfers.  Like some of you have said, home
automation is the opposite of a frontier technology.  It has been
around FOR THIRTY YEARS.  The only problem is that no one has done it
right yet.  Apple invented a PDA years before the palm, but they
didn't go about it in the right way and it never caught on.  Home
automation has three decades of trial-and-error data that can be
analyzed, learned from, and incorporated into a final product.  For HA
to really fall into the mainstream, a BIG company, like Apple or
whatever company you think has the money and know-how, needs to build
a system from the ground up that is simply too practical and desirable
to pass up.
	 Are my kids really going to own houses with metal keys, dozens of
light switches, multiple remote controls, separated TV/Computer/Home
Entertainment system, etc etc etc etc etc.  There are so many facets
of our household lives that can, and will, change as soon as someone
comes along who is able to do it, do it well, and do it for a decent
price.  Maybe Apple won't be that company, but someone will.
	Fifteen or twenty years ago, what would all of you have said about On-
Demand television?  There are myriad logistical issues to tackle
there, but Comcast and DirecTV and whoever else was involved spend
years of R&D and pulled it off.  And they're doing quite well now as a
result.  Nothing at all is impossible, but some things are really
really hard to do and even more difficult to do right.
	So my imaginary product, iBode, is my dream of doing something that
already has been done, but this time doing it right.  Maybe when I
finish this project and draft the 40+ page business proposal, I could
send a copy to any of you who are interested.  It might spark that
little bit of optimism that all of you had the first day you read a
post on comp.home.automation.  I would gladly let you see the finished
product, and send it to you right after I stamp the envelope addressed
to 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino.  Cheers.

Clay