With record attendance at its Worldwide Partner Conference in DC this week, Microsoft (MS) has continued to focus its extensive coterie of partners on the benefits of the cloud.  We expect that utilities will be interested in areas where the cloud can be applied, whether public or private.  Of course, this conference is primarily for partners, so it is all about enabling partners.  And the MS theme is partners, based on its philosophy of the commoditization of the industry.  As always the technology is cool, but it's up to the partners to provide use cases in the utility industry to see how it can be applied to the best benefit of a utility company. So, we spent time talking to the partners, attending keynotes with the MS stars and wandering the exhibit floor. Here's a heads-up for utilities on the possibilities.

Mapping.  Mapping at utilities, especially those with many assets, is likely not to move from the traditional GIS too soon.  However, they can use Bing Maps paired with GIS systems by ESRI and Autodesk to add visualization and outside data sources for data like weather, geo-coding or even more frequent map updates with "non-essential" information.  (Note:  Connectivity and asset data are essential and need to be protected for utility).  This type of visualization is more user friendly to execs that are used to GPS and maps for personal use.  In fact, one implementation partner at the Bing Maps session said that most of their sales are to the business.  GIS supplies the asset data that can be pulled up into the mash-ups so that field services crews can get the detail they need.  Of course, this works best when there are other MS products that are in the utility infrastructure, such as Sharepoint.   Small municipals with little infrastructure might be interested in exploring whether they can access services for mapping, especially if budget cuts lead to reduction in IT support for in-house applications and IT infrastructure.

Business Intelligence.  MS has always had a very broad definition of business intelligence (BI), including what we might term operational intelligence, in addition the traditional business intelligence.  MS is great at presentation - delivering up the information with their philosophy of "BI for the masses", although it has now shifted to "BI for everyone".  So, anyone can create reports.  What's new is Sharepoint 2010, that can provide a rich user interface. Utilities will need to have MS partners develop the interface using a bevy of MS tools. The MS product Dallas also provides data from external providers (either free government information or fee-based data) that can be used for display and analysis. 

MS sees Excel as its commodity analytical tool.  There are drill-down capabilities to look at enterprise information.  What is also new is Power Pivot, an in-memory analysis tool that allows the user to select data sources and is available for storing and processing larger amounts of data than ever. Users on Sharepoint can do some collaboration on spreadsheets using Power Pivot.  There is some experimentation with a new tool that allows monitoring of spreadsheet and query traffic – MS's answer to managing spreadsheets. All of that is pretty straightforward if you are a store or manufacturer with sales and inventory.  However, maybe it is not so easy with the utility business and where there are numerous sources of data in business applications that need to be rationalized. 

But, in our opinion, utilities also need advanced analytics – simulations and optimization - when dealing with complex operational decisions.  However, there wasn't heavy emphasis on more advanced analytics.

The Cloud.  Utilities are getting a little more receptive to cloud, especially when it comes to services such as customer relationship management in deregulated markets – MS has its own cloud based CRM – and environmental, health and safety – MS infrastructure underlies Enviance, for example.  Still, utilities are probably going to be more interested in the private cloud and for that MS has a whole suite of its Azure technology to accommodate or even customer-hosted cloud. 

Expanded communications.  We attended a session on the MS communications server and gained some insight into the potential of that infrastructure.  A use case was presented with an airline customer wanting to get accommodations during the shutdown of European airports due to the recent volcano.  The customer was able to contact the company through e-mail which connected to automated live chat and resulted in routing of the inquiry to the appropriate personnel, who then called back the customer through click to call.   Certainly worth a look for the utility call center.

Smart Phones.  MS has moved into the smart phone with a mantra that might appeal to utilities that grapple with whether or not to support their employees' mobile devices.  The pluses cited by MS are easy adaptation for utility support.

And now, off to talk with Jon Arnold about the Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA)….