Start with our top news story on page 8. After the usual delays, home control veterans Crestron Electronics and AMX have rolled out hardware and programming systems that essentially make it easier for their integrator partners to sell outside of the limited luxury home markets and into secondary homes, additional rooms and upper-middle-class homes.

The move increases the competition among veteran manufacturers AMX, Crestron, Elan Home Systems, Niles and SpeakerCraft, always a healthy dynamic for integrators looking to broker the best deals and garner vendor support. That also puts pressure on newcomers such as Control4 and Exceptional Innovation. They have to begin documenting and showcasing real-life installations to attract integrators that are comfortable with their legacy partners or just plain wary of unproven companies.

Another article that reflects the importance of cost-effective systems is “Digitally Speaking” on page 36 with Marc and Jennifer Leidig of Ambiance Systems. Ambiance recently dedicated its best employee to calling on existing customers to sell them new products and services. Today, that model is key to integrator survival, especially as big-box retailers try to emulate it. (See what Circuit City and BestBuy are doing on pages 10 and 26.)

In one month, the Ambiance employee racked up more than $100,000 in new product and services sales from three existing clients. All it took was a couple of phone calls for him to become Ambiance’s lead salesperson. More companies should follow Ambiance’s model.

The advent of cost-effective hardware, easy-to-use programming tools and proactive integrator services comes just at the right time. The new wave of homeowners--those in their 30s and 40s buying new homes or living larger in existing homes--crave the technological benefits they’ve had in the business environment. Thankfully, many of them realize they must pay for the services to properly install and maintain those solutions.