There are lots of remotes which look like the kenwood one - Creative's DVD-ROM drive remotes, for example.

It's all a question of quantity & time. A new remote requires a new ASIC - you can't just use a kenwood one, the manufacturers won't let you use another customers chip - this takes up to 16 weeks, and the cost is also pretty high. Plus there's the printing setup charges & so on. You then would need to commit to several thousand remotes absolute minimum.

We don't buy from Kenwood at retail - we buy enough to get a good discount. We did the maths and worked out that it was more cost effective for small volume just to buy retail.

Hugo