Below is a good description of how OPENcentrix works. Found it on the company's business plan.
Assume you have an important presentation to make at 9 o'clock, and it is not quite finished. You decide to come into work at 6 o'clock in the morning to finish it. In a Centrix equipped building, you would drive up to the parking garage and flash your access card in front of the card reader. The reader would know to open the door to the parking garage. So far, any proprietary system would do the same.
However, in a Centrix system, that initial contact could set the following chain of events in motion:
1) the elevator is called to P4 where your designated parking spot is (no waiting in the parking lot - an important safety feature);
2) the elevator takes you directly to the 11th floor where your office is located;
3) The lights and air conditioning are turned on only in the north-east corner (exactly where your office is located), which saves energy.
This is ture interoperability at work. Furthermore, because it is based on Windows NT and Cortex, Centrix allows the building systems to be managed from a single PC if need be, without an operator having to learn a new operating system.
Other key advantages of Centrix are:
1) Provides the end user with dramatic energy and cost savings
2) Ease of installation or retrofit (it runs on network cabling)
3) Provides an interface to the operator's information system
4) Is Year 2000 compliant (unlike most installed proprietary systems)
5) No more expensive than proprietary systems.
....
In terms of pricing of the system, here's what the company has to say:
"Pricing is a key component in the buying decision for building owners and managers. Faced with a choice of a new, exciting technology with promises great things, but at a higher price than current technology, many buyers will opt for the system that they know, warts and all. The company's strategy therefore has been to price Centrix the same, or slightly lower than, competitors' offerings, so that the decision can be made on the basis of user benefits alone." |
