Two companies from outside the traditional boundaries of the residential market plan to market a package of products and services for residential structured wiring systems.
Black Box Corp., Pittsburgh, and Best Buy Co. Inc., Minneapolis, will jointly market a new home networking package. Officially marketed as the In-Home Integration Program, it will provide design, installation and maintenance services for data, voice, video and audio systems in new home construction.
Best Buy, the consumer electronics giant with $22.7 billion in 2003 sales, more than 98,000 employees and 700 stores in the United States and Canada, has contracted with several homebuilders who will include these systems as part of a standard home package.
With its 117 locations, 3,100 employees, and fiscal 2003 sales of $605 million, Black Box is a fast-growing hybrid player in the VDV arena that installs, maintains and distributes products for commercial and industrial structured wiring systems, will provide the technical services and products required under these arrangements. As part of this program, Black Box/Best Buy will roll out this new service initially in the Dallas area beginning in July 2003. Other targeted areas will follow with a goal of providing complete services throughout the United States.
Executives from the two companies hope the red-hot housing market will be fertile ground for the installation of the home networking systems involved in the initiative. According to the latest government statistics, groundbreaking for new homes in the United States rose to a total of 1.7 million annual units in 2003.
“We are very excited about this new and innovative service offering,” said John Doherty, director of fulfillment, In Home Integration for Best Buy. “With the combined strengths of Best Buy and Black Box, we will now be able to provide new homeowners with state-of-the-art systems that will be designed to fit the modern family’s technical lifestyle requirements.”
“Today the home market has a void relative to maximizing individual data, voice, video and audio components into reliable, user friendly systems,” said Paul Hailey, manager, Global Account Services for Black Box. “This In-Home Integration Program will now provide homeowners with the same level of professional service they currently enjoy at the office and that their children enjoy at school.”