Microsoft Power and Utilities Blog

We’ve been speaking with a number of  power and utility companies struggling with legacy email and other communications systems. In the day and age of Windows Phone 7 and other smart phones, employees are driving the utility’s technology system agenda...

The wide scale, worldwide  implementation of smart meters is revealing tremendous opportunities for utilities to manage their entire business differently, and more effectively. They are using the data influx to refine their mechanics for billing...

We have all heard the phrase “BI for the Masses” but making this a reality has been a very difficult feat indeed. For Power and Utility companies few will argue that fulfilling the vision of the smart grid will require better visualization and analytic...

At Microsoft we are committed to developing technologies that help consumers and businesses reduce their environmental footprint. It’s a corporate priority for us and this effort extends to our campuses, our products, our data centers and the work being...

Back in December we wrote about how Utilities around the world are using SharePoint for many different applications including managing smart meter deployments, outage management, demand side management programs, plant operations and corporate intranets...

Last year in February, Microsoft unveiled the next generation of its Windows Phone based on the Windows 7 operating system. Of course, we know now that Windows 7 has proven to be an exceptionally stable, friendly, and functional user experience and I...

From our talks around the world with utilities, we hear that many are putting much thought into their Customer Relationship Management systems. The CRM systems that were installed 10 years ago aren’t meeting todays challenges, especially with customer...

Congratulations to our friends at OSIsoft for their unique achievement, winning the first-ever Microsoft Sustainability Partner of the Year Award for the OSIsoft PI system, built on the Microsoft platform. The award was given out from nearly 3,000 partner...

Power & Utilities today are looking for technology solutions that are flexible, adaptable and able to conform to their needs as opposed to solutions that make you conform to a rigid set of business processes that may not be optimal for your company...

There are moments in life so special that we never forget them. Marriage, kids birthdays, graduations and even some related to work! One of those special work moments happened last week to our friends at Mainstream Renewable Power for their recognition...

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion concerning visions for the Cloud in the advancement and development of the smart grid from a governmental and industry policy perspective. The setting was perfect, in Microsoft...

We wrote 6 months ago about Microsoft and Telvent’s Smart Grid Focus announcement to bring utilities throughout the world more scalable solutions with higher performance and increased security at a lower cost. Now much of that hard work we have been doing...

Power and Utility industry cyber-security practitioners will want to check out SubNet Solutions’ Online Webinar on the Complexities of Substation Cyber Security . SUBNET Solutions is a Microsoft partner that specializes in making substations more intelligent...

  I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Bentley Systems’ Be Together conference held on May 23-26, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, Pa. If you are not familiar with Bentley , they are uniquely dedicated to providing...

Last week I attended and spoke at the IHS Spectrum Conference in Austin, Texas. For those that are not familiar with IHS , they serve international clients in four major areas: energy, product lifecycle, environment, and security. The IHS Spectrum event...

On my recent vacation in India I was amazed how the explosion of new devices, web applications, and social media platforms had not only made its way into my family’s lifestyle but Indian society as well. While the picture of me on a camel in the Thar...

Two webcasts are now available for your viewing pleasure.  The first presented on Wednesday, April 27 th is a technical oriented Webcast on best practices for deploying the Itron Enterprise Edition Meter Data Management Solution on SQL Server 2008...

Imagine 10-million meter deployment, validation, estimation, and storage process in under 4 hours, TOU/CPP billing determinant calculation and export in less than 2 hours, determinant calculations averaged 70 customers/sec and an average import speed...

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Convergence 2011, an annual Microsoft Dynamic’s premier customer event. This year’s conference attracted more than more than 9,100 customers, prospects, partners, and industry experts representing...

Smart Grid continues to make progress. One of the most important areas under discussion is the notion of securing the Smart Grid. What does this really mean? How do we add tens of millions of Smart Meters and even more smart devices like thermostats or...

As we head down the path towards the Smart Energy Ecosystem with our utilities customers, there are many benefits that the smart grid offers the industry, customers, and society at large.  In delivering on the promise of the smart grid,  utilities...

An interesting press release out yesterday announced a new strategic partnership between Microsoft and Toyota using the Windows Azure cloud platform for next generation telematics services. Telematics is the fusion of telecom and information technologies...

Okay, I’m back from my trip to India. Truly, a fantastic country. I was so intrigued by what I saw I couldn’t he lp but take notes and pictures along the way, for material for this blog. The primary purpose of my trip was to see my daughter Sierra, who...

The remarkable feature of American democracy is the proximity of citizens to the highest elected officials in the land both during and after their public service. At CERAWeek a couple of weeks ago I had the chance to pose with two previous presidents...

I blogged yesterday that members of our Power & Utilities Team will be supporting our partners OSIsoft and Telvent at their User Group meetings but I forgot to mention that our customer, John Shaw of Mainstream Renewable Power  will be speaking...