I am in no way trying to speak for any professionals out there, but I think the complaints in this area would really be in situations where it's a genuine software problem. I am not sure that the installer should he charging a customer for problems that are out of their control - maybe Im wrong. That's along the lines of selling someone a lemon vehicle, then charging them for service to repair the vehicle. If that is the case, I could see it being pretty difficult to recoup those costs - morally anyway :mellow:
The lemon analogy isn't accurate - if there's a legitimate bug, Dean has mentioned an escalation path a few pages back.
But on to your other question. And as long as we're talking about the pro sector, let me ground us in some metrics. I'll use my own install as I can't speak to anyone elses. What you'll see below is that the $2K/year (max) for a moderately competent professional won't even enter the equation, hell, it seems to me that CQC is still vastly underpriced compared to what it allows you to do. Then again Dean probably has to do that in order to break into the market, as installers will otherwise stick with AMX/Crestron/etc.
As shown above, I have $24K in probably 50% used eBay parts. If I were a pro, I'd likely have to source ~$35K MSRP in parts as I couldn't put used stuff into someone's home. Furthermore, (as shown on myhometheaterpc.com) my setup would be about 450 manhours to reproduce (at least, i haven't re-upped those #s in a while). 200 manhours of 'smart' work, 250 hours of wiring.Assuming a blended rate of $75/hour ($50/hr for wiring, $50/hr for intelligent work), that's $36K.
So now, we're at:
-$35k in parts
-$36K in labor
-$ 1K for CQC
Option A) You're a 1 man shop to just do CQC templates, and the customer buys & integrates his own hardware.
If you're a "single shingle", then at $100/hour, that's 20 hours of work. If you're a single shingle, then I hope you're getting at least 1000 hours of billable work per year, or else you need a different profession. (When I was in management consulting, I typically hit 1800-2400/year.) So really, your margin just got cut by 2%. Instead of making $100/hour, you're making $98/hour. But in return you get the ability to call the very company who's product you rely upon to generate revenue you depend on at will. Seems like a great deal to me.
Option B ) You have a few wiring monkeys working for you and you source the hardware.
If you have a few guys working for you, then in my install you could personally do the 200 manhours of 'smart' work and let the wiring monkeys do the other 250 manhours. Assuming you have a mega-long sales lead time and only work 50% of the time, that'll take you 10 weeks to do my house. You can do 5 installs at my level per year.
- You're making at LEAST 20 points (typically 35%) on the hardware, which is $36K * 0.2 = $7K/install.
- You're probably not paying your guys $50/hour, you're probably paying your guys $25/hour(MAX) because, see, they're wiring monkeys. At 250 manhours, that's $6.2K/install.
- Your personal time is 200 manhours @$100/hour, or $20K/install.
- At 5 installs per year, your topline gross is 5 * $20K plus 5 *$7K plus 5 * $6K = $165K.
- The $2K/year for telephone support for the 'glue' that makes this all possible is 1.2%. BTW, the CQC software is only $1K/$72K = 1.3% of the overall cost. So now in TOTAL, CQC is only getting 2.5% of the overall job but in return gives you the knowledge & products to differentiate your job from the schmoe who just put in a basic HAI system.
Either path seems like CQC support & license is still underpriced to me and I don't see how any legitimate professional has grounds to complain, especially since they're probably well used to the 'I will bill them for every hour I possibly can' model. This is a fixed fee, given the # hours Dean spends for that $$ amount he probably makes less than the McDonalds burger flippers.
Will there be any losers? Sure, a dude who does <50 hours of CQC per year with no projections to grow that over time, at a flat $5K/year in revenue, and now has to decide whether to pay $500-$2K of that to CQC for support. Then again if you're only doing 50 CQC hours per year with no growth projections, you're spreading yourself too thin, and should tighten your business model to focus on a few things where you can excel. After all, if you only do 50 hours of work per year on something you're never going to be very good, and should stick with something you can excel in, and create a competitive advantage.
