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Who Should Buy the App: Integrator or Client?
Audio One had a “billionaire client” who was going to walk away from a four-year-long, seven-figure job simply because it was going to charge him to download the $99 Crestron app.
"The client wanted everything to be working perfectly when he arrived home, which meant we needed to turn on the Apple TV and check it," he recalls. "But because we didn't have the client's iTunes password, we couldn't check the system."
The story started a debate among attendees: Who should buy the apps necessary to operate a control system? The client or the integrator?
To avoid waiting on the job, Greg Simmons on Eagle Sentry in Las Vegas collects a client's iTunes account information and credit card number (and passcode) as part of his standard questionnaire form for every job. But some clients are wary of giving integrators that information.
Frangioni had a "billionaire client" who was going to walk away from a four-year-long, seven-figure job because Audio One was going to charge him to download the $99.99 Crestron app. "I had to throw it in," says Frangioni.
The situation is especially sticky for Michael Silver, president of Audio High in Mountain View, Calif., because many of his clients are Apple executives since the company is based in nearby Cupertino, Calif. Silver describes his situation as "sleeping with the enemy." "We do projects for companies that make these apps that are now competing with us," he adds.
What's your policy regarding buying apps for clients/obtaining their iTunes account information and credit card info?
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Blogs · Home Automation and Control · Control Systems · Ce Pro 100 Summit · Apple · Apps ·About the Author
5 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
As the individual most often telling the customer when/how to download this app, I absolutely hate the current practice of charging $99 not once, but twice (Mobile Pro & Mobile Pro G [iPad]). It puts a sour taste in my own and the clients mouth, generally right before we should be covering the most exciting part of the job (final walkthrough/training sessions). Even worse when you get to really big jobs where you might have to buy multiple licenses to support a large number of iDevices…
Just this past monday I was woking on a clients program, and he dint even had a pasword for is Itunes account, event set it up properly, I was delayed due to this, even I had to take time to re create a new account, after all that time wasted he had a issue with adresses and bank records, he ended up telling me that his son had an account and they go out and buy a prepaid Itunes card for apps purchaces, after all this I told to the company who contract me: make shure the customer downloads the necesary apps prior to getting in to work, even more that customer dint had the Ipad we ended buying it for him. If the customer can download Facebook app and Angry Birds why cannot pay for an expensive app to control such systems, I let that to the customer, I only do it for a customer who I do apreciate or is been like a friends type of client, but that pays in forward in such cases.
Jesus-
I hope your spoken Engrish is better than what was written here.
I dint double check what I type in, sorry on that!
No written policy. Case by case basis. Typically the client is there and they just log in for us, we download what apps we need. Never need a credit card because iTunes already has that info in there so not sure why anyone would need a card number for iTunes accounts already set up.
More often than not, the customer just says “oh here is my password, we trust you.”. While thats pleasing to hear, we avoid them giving it to us any passwords and try to insist they enter it.
There are no surprises on $99 apps as that should already be in the quotes indicating who/how its paid. Usually a line not stating “download this app, its $99.”