FOR Panja on Clifton Moor, the future of an Internet-guided automatic house, office or conference room is now - and from here on will grow even more intense and profitable.

Massive investment has been pouring into the company which began life as Axcess Technology, was bought by AMX, later becoming Panja of Dallas. The Clifton Moor operation has just been re-christened in the family name, Panja Ltd, redolent of panga, the jungle knife which implies the cutting edge.

It supplies hardware to some 200 dealerships who are, in the jargon, "installer integrators" putting together all-singing-and-dancing automation systems, which at the press of a touch sensitive screen, draws curtains, dims lights and cues action for videos, also adjusts volume, heating and lighting and at the same time keeps an Internet-monitored eye on your premises.

Dallas HQ is smiling upon this outpost for which this year's profit is expected to be £600,000 based on a 40 per cent increase in turnover to £5.6 million.

It is making the Auster Road premises its new European services centre, sanctioning about £500,000 in training and equipment, £150,000 of which will be spent on one of the most advanced training rooms in Britain to keep those dealership technicians in the know.

Rupert Powell, general manager, and one of the Axcess Technology founders, says that his 30 staff (including two in Belgium) will take on five more people immediately plus another ten over next year.

More importantly, as a reward for being the most successful of all its nine branches, the new Clifton Moor Panja will extend its sales, and now servicing, to a wider range of Panja products.

That includes its automated lighting systems which have just obtained European approval. You can go on-line to control the intensity of lights in the office or home. You can link it to security alarms. And you can integrate it into a home control system. Don't worry about waking in the dark and stumbling to the bathroom. This light knows the time. There's a low level glow to help see your way.

Residential products, such as Landmark, act like a digital Feng Shui, according to its glossy brochure, "bringing the moveable, physical elements of environment-lights, heating, cooling, fans, curtains, shades, blinds, sprinklers, pool, spa - and arranging them to respond together, operating in harmony with your lifestyle".

Mr Powell, a computer graduate by education and sound engineer by trade, working for the leisure industry, agrees that the residential controls tended to be bought by oil sheikhs and relatively wealthy. Music systems drawing from the Internet, tend to cost up to £3,000.

But some adaptations for businesses were good value. "You can go to a standard web interface and control all the light in the building miles away. The system will also gauge the level of light which staff find comfortable.

"In this way there are power savings of about 20 per cent. Lamps run at least twice as long if you operate them at 80 per cent power. The energy saving pays for itself in a couple of years."