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• ESCO Technologies acquired not only Hexagram but Nexus Energy Software as well;
• Bayard acquired Landis + Gyr and Hunt Technologies,
• Followed by Hunt Technologies acquiring StatSignal.
• Sensus acquired AMDS, setting up another company with a metering and AMI business to challenge Elster, Itron, and Bayard.
• Itron and Cannon Technologies established a partnership to provide reliable and cost-effective coverage in both high and low-density service territories, and
• Cooper Power Systems acquired Cannon Technologies, and
• Cooper Power Systems and Sensus entered into a rather unique partnership on the FlexNet network, where either company can sell FlexNet to utilities, and the other can sell its products under the networks.
• SPL and Cellnet announce a partnership to ease integration between Cellnet and SPL systems, and
• Oracle acquires SPL at an opportune time, with SPL well-positioned at PG&E;
• And finally, eMeter and EnergyICT partner to fully integrate their meter data management products for the mass market and C&I market segments providing seamless data collection for large commercial and industrial customers, and presenting a direct challenge to Itron for MV-90 in the United States.

One result is that every major meter manufacturer is now co-located with an AMI provider except for one: General Electric. How long will GE stay on the sidelines of the AMI game? The ability of utilities to require AMI providers to work with at least two major meter vendors may become a relic of the past if GE acquires an AMI provider (it seems unlikely that an AMI provider would acquire GE.) AMI providers on their own may need to find a dance partner soon or hope that the anticipated ANSI network communication standard C12.22 is widely adopted and, adopt it themselves.

The meter data management market for the mass market (customers other than large C&I) is very young, with fewer than 20 utilities in North America even awarding contracts for meter data management. But the market for data collection for C&I customers has been active for decades. Almost every electric utility, from large to small, uses MV-90 in some form, providing a large market for eMeter and EnergyICT to challenge the market leader in large C&I data collection—Itron. eMeter achieves a coup with this partnership, and EnergyICT may waltz into an agreement with a large U.S. utility years earlier than it could have achieved on its own.

In an interview with Claude Godin, President of EnergyICT, North America, he said they were convinced to join forces with their competitor, eMeter, for two main reasons:

1. U.S. Requests for Proposals ask for functionality that EnergyICT had not encountered in Europe, such as meter provisioning and outage management, provided by eMeter, and
2. They felt their chances of winning major deals upcoming in North America would be significantly increased by partnering with a complimentary U.S. company such as eMeter—they didn't want to miss out on significant opportunities over the next two years before they won their first large deal on this side of the Atlantic.

Utilities need vendors to provide seamless integration of IT products as they work on operating "smarter," using much more detailed and real-time data across utility applications, and providing the right information to the right people at the right time. Vendors are positioning to be one of the selected partners for utilities to successfully achieve this vision, resulting in some odd extended relationships. Itron has a partnership with Cannon Technologies, now owned by Cooper Power Systems, while Cooper Power Systems is engaged in an innovative partnership with Sensus, allowing utilities to use one network for both distribution automation and AMI. Meanwhile, Sensus and Itron directly compete in the metering and AMI market segments. At CenterPoint, Itron and eMeter work together to support the rollout of BPL, with Itron supplying its new OpenWay endpoints, and eMeter the meter data management, while at other utilities, eMeter and Itron go head-to-head on meter data management.

The North American MDM market is clearly headed for a significant increase in activity in 2007 and 2008. Year 2006 included six vendor selections for major MDM implementations, and UtiliPoint forecasts that 2007 and 2008 will include at least 15 MDM selections per year, based on information available today on the level of utility interest in MDM. UtiliPoint is the midst of offering a series of webinars for utilities to learn about MDM and participate in question and answer sessions with utilities actively engaged in MDM planning, implementation, and advanced feature development. To date, more than 55 utilities signed up to participate in these webinars.

It will be interesting to see how the meter data management market leadership is affected by the recent M&A and partnership activity and the sharp uptake in activity expected to occur. UtiliPoint notes that eMeter, Itron, and LodeStar currently lead this market (including consideration of the number of contract awards combined with the number of endpoints included in the awards). eMeter can expect to leverage their partnership with EnergyICT while Itron has its new OpenWay endpoints to add to its significant list of product offerings. Nexus has DCSI and Hexagram to open up more doors, and SPL is now backed by Oracle. Any and all of these new alignments awards provide utilities with advantages, and may lead to market share changes. All MDM providers are wise to continue to consider how to improve their positioning before the competition heats up even further in 2007 and 2008.