Will West, CEO, Control4
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You could say the home automation market is still in its Wild West phase. Will West, CEO of Control4, Salt Lake City, is grabbing a lot of attention in the nascent market with his low-cost home-control system, which enables homeowners to control lighting, heating, security and entertainment systems over a network.
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At this year's CEDIA Expo, where Control4 had one of the busiest booths on the floor, West, 45, never missed a chance to talk up Control4's philosophy of bringing home-control solutions out of the
of the rich and famous and to the masses, or at least the upper middle class.
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"It's a gigantic market out there that's just being scratched," he says. "The CEDIA guys are beginning to get it."
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Control4 doesn't release sales numbers but claims to have 700 dealers. It also has attracted a number of new competitors. Many home integrators say they are waiting for Control4 to establish a more solid presence before signing on, but others say that despite some product delays, the company is helping them take their business in new directions.
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And that's just what West envisioned. He believes affordable home-control systems will enable integrators to create new service and sales opportunities and deeper relationships with customers. "You're not going to make money by doing 10 $100,000 jobs a year," West says. "If you can implement some type of control into each job, you can own the customer."