The Publisher's Note

If you are a distributor seeking to capture your share of the residential datacom market and you're not familiar with the Home Automation and Networking Association (HANA), you should be. Founded in 1988, the trade association currently has more that 450 company members, including manufacturers, distributors, dealers, installers and service providers of home-automation products.

In addition to keeping its members abreast of home-automation developments with its newsletter and educational programs, HANA also sponsors The Electronic House Expo twice a year. The spring version of this show and conference, which was also sponsored by EH Events and Education, was March 7-10 in Orlando. It drew about 4,000 home-networking professionals who visited 125 booths and attended some of the 70 seminars.

“It was the first time that we went to a seminar where there were some sales-oriented topics and some technical topics,” said Darryl Minkin, datacom specialist with Harris Electric Supply, Nashville, Tenn. “Normally, with data communications, you either get a sales focus or a technology focus. They did a great job of mixing the two.”

For more information about HANA, visit its Web site at www.hanaonline.org .