Samsung's affect on dealers

imsoco

The purchase of AMX by Samsung has caused quite a bit of conjecture as top the future of the brand. Some of the possibilities would be AMX will just be taken for its intellectual properties and quietly put to rest.Another would be, which I would like to see, is AMX integrated into their smart TV's and rolled out as a single platform for smart things, IFTTT, and other services to work together. How far can they take the smart home now with the use of AMX control and a qualified dealer network? Dr. Evil would be envious of holding this position in the automation world. Another possibility would be that dealers will now be able to purchase TV through their AMX account. (Not likely)
I think that Samsung is also facing this issue of what to do with the thousands of us supporting this brand.Has anyone seen any dealer input committee for Samsung?

John Nagy

At Cedia in September, the then-director of AMX Residential, Robert Choate told me that Samsung had already integrated essentially a NetLinx into a TV for the Japanese market, Intended as a control hub of some sort. He said didn't know what the future plan was.

bano

Who's the director of Resi now?

John Nagy

As the reductions went, it's not clear if the position was continued. Clearly Choate had no intention or expectation of leaving as of September, but was gone in the layoffs shortly after.
Perhaps well founded fear of further discouraging the remaining faithful prevents open discussion of such things...

I should note that many calls and emails to Choate went unanswered in later September and October, implying that no one is picking up this area of attention. In early November, we connected with yet another new Harmon rep who took care of our paperwork and confirmed that Choate had been gone a while...