Platform Partnering Frenzy at GridWeek

A week after our lead story (linked below) explaining the principles behind the Smart Grid's new platform era, companies are falling over themselves to merge, join, partner or otherwise prove they have the right stuff. Silver Spring Networks has snapped up Greenbox, the maker of in-home display software. Trilliant, Tropos and others are announcing important interoperability partnerships. Gridpoint has updated its software and its Web site to better explain its value proposition. And Cisco, IBM and Siemens are here in force to trumpet their own platforms as the best path forward.

Now all they have to do is bring their customers along. Utilities, long used to buying point solutions one at a time, are often made nervous by the "platform" moniker. They worry that it will be extra cost and complexity. As a result, even the most ardent platform makers often have to sell a single point solution and talk about the platform as a "bonus" that can be used later, if needed.

We know from computers and cell phones that platforms have many advantages for customers. Who would want to go back to developing every computer application from scratch instead of buying them for the Windows or Apple platforms. But utilities are slow to catch on and, since the customer is always right, vendors are proclaiming platforms from the dais, but downplaying the word when talking individually to customers with a checkbook.

Survival Guide to the Smart Grid Platform