A/V - IT Integration Scary for Business

Traditional A/V companies are feeling very threatened by much of the activity that in going on as part of the A/V-IT convergence. Not helpful to this fear, is the recent decision by Crestron to partner with Dell and sell product through Dell. Also, brought to light is the fact that CDW already carries a pretty full line of Crestron product. There seems to be a feeling of "what is the small A/V business to do".

Although I am considered by the industry to be an "end-user" it seems pretty simple to me what these companies need to do. They need to expand their lines and partner with IT companies. If I owned a small to medium sized A/V company today, I would be on the phone with all the IT companies within a 1oo mile radius. I would be trying to strike up some partnerships and figure out how we will not drive each other out of business. Think of the partnership similar to the Independent Programmer/Integrator partnership. Both of the parties in those relationships recognize the expertise of the other, don't have to carry the overhead of extra employees and seem to be doing very well.

The other fear I hear all the time is "these guys don't know what they are doing" in reference to IT guys doing A/V installs. My question, if that is true, why do you care? If IT guys go in and screw up an A/V install, then who is going to get the call to fix it? You are! Then guess what, you get to make money in the only area left to make money: SERVICE.