Continues on next page >> By Jesse Berst   With the North American metering market now in slow growth mode, manufacturers have turned their attention from hardware to software. More specifically, to selling software that wrings more value from their smart meters. . Some of that software is "utility facing," as documented in our distribution automation .

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and analytics channels. And some of it is "customer facing," as we chronicle in our consumer engagement channel.

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Paper reports and web portals were the first consumer engagement battlegrounds. Now, in a move that mirrors the world at large, the action is shifting to the mobile front.

A tipping point for social and mobile?

I've written before about our MoSoLoCo future and how to prepare. The world is becoming Mobile, Social, Local and Connected. The utility world was briefly insulated from these revolutions, but this temporary isolation is ending.

For instance, smart phones and social media have become vital lifelines during power outages. Initially, consumers leaned on services such as Twitter during storms such as Irene and Sandy. Now they are coming to expect mobile updates during any service interruption. What's more, "we've hit a tipping point for smart phones," contends Aclara's Andy Zetlan, Vice President, Business Development and Regulatory. "Consumers are coming to prefer their phones over their computers for home banking and bill paying." And they are starting to demand similar capabilities from all their suppliers.

The next phase in mobile apps

Already nearly a dozen mobile apps have appeared. But this week at the annual DistribuTECH conference, Missouri-based Aclara upped the ante by introducing a mobile "platform." Dubbed the Aclara Mobile Experience (AME), the system was devised in consultation with Aclara's utility advisory board and built in conjunction with a series of partners. It aspires to be much more than a single application. Rather, is intended to be a platform for building a series of mobile solutions.

On paper, at least, AME seems to qualify for its platform label. It handles many of the difficulties that plague one-off apps.

·         Making separate versions for iPhones versus Android phones versus Windows phones

·         Making separate versions for each major language

·         Pulling together data from multiple sources

Aclara's solution is an "application integration platform." A developer only has to write one application that will then automatically run on multiple phones in multiple languages while pulling information from multiple sources.

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Today many companies write different apps for different phones. Aclara's platform lets developers write one app that works on either iPhone or Android. Support for Windows phones is in the works.

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