DDG, Z-Wave Alliance Team

SEATTLE — Digital Delivery Group (DDG), a network of 14 distributors serving the custom-install channel, partnered with the Z-Wave Alliance to promote awareness of wireless Z-Wave home-control technology within the channel and provide sales, training, and support services for Z-Wave products.

The partnership is part of DDG's effort to select specific products and brands in keeping with DDG members' philosophy about the direction of the custom-install industry, which is shifting toward a day when "everything is going to be an attachment to the network," explained DDG executive director David Kaplan.

DGG's eight founding distributors realized that the market was going to make "a paradigm shift," with whole-home integration moving toward an IT-based approach and entertainment delivery heading toward an on-demand model, according to DGG president Mark Friedman.

The founders felt they had to evolve the archetypal distribution model to provide complete solutions, added Friedman, who is a partner in DGG member Custom Audio Video Distribution in the New York/New Jersey area. "The typical distribution model is to respond to demand determined by vendors," he said. "We [distributors] are not going to be a 'parts seller' anymore," he continued. "Distributors are going to need to sell complete package systems."

DDG was founded in June 2005 with a mission statement saying the group is "committed to being the leading source for sales and education of digital systems and convergence products." The mission also "focuses on selling and supporting whole house control, networking tools and other new and emerging products that will aid its mission to meet "consumers' need to manage content from many sources and locations."