cyberManor was founded in 1999, started by company president Gordon van Zuiden. In its first few years the company’s focus was based on the custom design and integration of home networks connected to high speed cable and DSL broadband services. After 2001 the company’s skill sets expanded into audio video and home control, providing integrated data/audio/video media distribution, management and automation solutions to over 500 residential clients over the last 10 years. Today cyberManor has 6 employees and revenues this year should top $1.2 million dollars. Last year cyberManor completed over 30 IT/CE convergence projects, about half of these in new construction or major remodels, and the other half were retrofit projects. The average revenue on these projects is about $50,000, with some as large as $300,000.
Mr. van Zuiden has been a guest speaker on the digital home and digital media server classes at EHX and CEDIA over the last 8 years. He has authored monthly columns on the convergence of CE and IT solutions in Electronic House and Residential Systems magazine over the last 7 years. He has also been a keynote speaker at industry outreach events for the IEEE, ASID and NKBA associations over the last several years.
Gordon is currently serving in his second term on CEDIA’s Board of Directors and chairs the Discovery Action Team for CEDIA’s technology council. He was also a Subject Matter Expert involved in developing the initial HTI testing questions for CompTIA and several Digital Media Server courses for CEDIA.
cyberManor’s showroom in downtown Los Gatos, California showcases the latest products in multi-room audio/video and control solutions using both Control4 and Lifeware/Media Center based platforms. Both of these solutions use IP as the primary protocol to transport audio/video and control information to CE AV products at the edge of the network in each room of our showcase installation.
Our company’s growth and success is based primarily upon our client referrals and the company’s media presence - from the monthly columns written by Mr. Van Zuiden to the integrated projects that cyberManor has completed that have been featured in consumer and trade magazines (Electronic House, Residential Systems, cePro).
To help educate on our clients on the benefits of converged IT/CE systems for their home we demonstrate these solutions in our showroom, hand out column reprints that Gordon has written on this subject over the years, and tour them through our showcase integrated homes – such as the Digital Home that we completed for HP at their executive briefing site in Cupertino, California last year.
To maintain the health and integrity of the integrated solutions we install cyberManor offers several levels of customer support. Our standard one year support covers all manufacturers’ warranties and labor for one year. Our fee based silver level of support provides software upgrades and remote troubleshooting service. Our premium gold level of support adds a guaranteed 48 hour response and problem resolution time frame to our silver support level.
Our company website highlights the unique IT/CE skill sets of our company. It includes a detailed description, photos, and schematics of a wide range of our completed IT/CE projects. The site also features consumer videos (from CISCO, CNET, and Lifeware) that highlight the benefits of IT/CE convergence solutions.
Our most public projects to date include:
* One of the first nationally recognized Premise Systems IP based home control system solution for a client in Reno, Nevada. This project was completed in 2004 and recognized as a National Finalist in the 2004 Mark of Excellence awards
* Our company was also the lead designer and integrator for HP’s showcase Digital Home in Cupertino, California. This home has been complete for over a year and shown to thousands of visitors, including many of HP’s strategic alliance customers, national and local press, and hundreds of HP employees. The home features an HP Media Center and Windows Home Server solution extended by Exceptional Innovation’s Lifeware suite of home automation services – including camera, security, lighting, thermostat, and motorized window treatment control.
* In 2008 we completed one of the most extensive and creative implementations of a Microsoft Media Center/Extender/Lifeware integrated solution for a client in Northern California. For this project cyberManor was recognized in the fall of this year as their annual National Ultimate Install Award winner. This December and in January 2009 our company will be recognized on the covers of Residential Systems and CePRO respectively for our award winning work.
cyberManor is proud of our employees’ technical expertise. Our project managers, programmers, and technical engineers have a solid understanding of the design, integration and support of IP based home networking systems. This includes knowledge of how to program and configure network routers, switches and Windows/Mac based operating systems for optimal and reliable network performance.
Our IT designs are often based on Windows Home Server, Media Center, Control4, Sonos, Kaleidescape, Lifeware and Panasonic product platforms. These products complement and provide content to the CE lines that we carry that include Denon, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, and Universal Remote Control. cyberManor frequently uses network attached storage drives at the heart of our integrated system solutions to store and serve the digital audio/video content in our client’s homes.
Our company’s employees are actively involved and encouraged to participate in vendor and trade association training throughout the year. They are trained by vendors that come to our office, via online training courses, and classes taken at CEDIA. This year 5 of our employees took a combined total of 48 hours of training at CEDIA’s national expo in Denver. Our employee’s have training certifications from HTI+, CEDIA Installer Certifications, Lutron, Control4, Lifeware, Channelvision and Universal Remote Control.
To help educate our client’s on the systems that we install for them we provide training and cheat sheets on how to best use their integrated systems. Technical support is also provided by our technician’s that provide on-call or onsite service 7 days per week.
