Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Residential Security: Beyond the Walled Garden

For the independent security dealer, all of these changing customer and technology profiles is already happening. The appeal of the walled garden’s closed system is convenience and usability; however, that point of distinction is being eroded by those same factors.

Parks Associates recently mapped the smart home’s competitive landscape by looking for cues and harbingers in user reviews. What Parks’ Tom Kerber found was that walled garden automation was already showing signs of dying off.

“The breadth of [open] platforms is much more substantial,” Kerber says. “It will be hard to maintain a [vertically integrated] approach, or even, for that matter, a highly curated approach, when a very open approach can provide a similar user experience and provide much more access…to whatever product you may have or want to own.”

If there’s a key takeaway from the Parks Associates study for your purposes, it is this: The move from vertically integrated to open “could happen relatively quickly,” according to Kerber. “Our recommendation to smart home platform providers, as well as service providers, is to plan for that eventuality.”

This means security dealers may need to consider offering a broader range of products, he adds.

From the article "Residential Security: Beyond the Walled Garden" by Shawn Welsh.

Previously In The News

One in five US subscribers now ‘dissatisfied’ with pay TV service

Some 20% of US pay TV subscribers are now dissatisfied with their pay TV service, according to research from Parks Associates. The future represents a 100% increase since 2013, according to Parks....

AT&T gooses $45 prepaid plan with cheaper iPhones

And, as a recent report from Parks Associates noted, consumers are increasingly drawn to the simplified pricing offers in prepaid. The firm said that “currently postpaid carriers are starting to explo...

59% of broadband-enabled UK households now access video content online

The proportion of UK households with broadband connections utilising the service to access online video content has reached 59%, according to new research. Parks Associates relayed their key findin...

AT&T kills Plenti loyalty program but touts ongoing Thanks campaign

Parks Associates reported last year that 60% of respondents in a survey valued a rewards program for being a loyal customers, third only to the ability to roll over unused data (66%) and free access t...