Itron Inc. has announced that Gartner Inc. has positioned its meter data management (MDM) solution in the “Leaders” quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Meter Data Management Products. This is the third consecutive year that Itron has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant.
“As Itron increases our focus on delivering software, services and outcomes to our customers, we are proud to continue our position in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s Meter Data Management Magic Quadrant Report,” said Bruce Douglas, senior vice president and general manager of software and services at Itron. “As a pioneer in meter data management, Itron has extensive knowledge and experience in helping utilities manage their data. We believe that MDM is transitioning from solely automating utility billing to providing value-based analytics that drive outcome-based solutions, such as revenue assurance, leak and impedance detection and cathodic protection. Itron is committed to helping deliver new business value to our utility customers around the world.”
Itron Enterprise Edition (IEE) MDM is an MDM solution that is in production at 72 energy companies and manages data from more than 37 million meters across six continents. The MDM solution integrates with Itron’s smart grid and automation solutions and creates value and insights from smart metering data. The highly scalable MDM solution provides a central repository that ensures data remains secure, audited and easily accessible to individuals across a utility’s enterprise. This MDM solution is pre-integrated with Itron Analytics, which can be delivered off the shelf or through cloud-based services solutions. The analytics solution enables utilities to turn metering data into actionable intelligence, improving operations, distribution system efficiency, reliability and asset management. In addition, with Itron Total Services, Itron manages all aspects of a utility’s data collection system, including MDM and analytic applications, with a simplified, subscription-based pricing structure.
According to Gartner’s research, authored by Zarko Sumic and released on Dec. 14, 2015, “selecting the right solution in a rapidly maturing MDM market with diverse needs is a challenge for CIOs and buyers of smart metering solutions. To help clients understand vendors' capabilities and deployment risks, we provide an update of product positioning in this growing utility market.”
The research evaluated 12 vendors that met the report’s inclusion criteria.
According to the Gartner report, “Leaders in this market normally are included on shortlists for MDM products for all types of utilities worldwide. They should perform profitably, grow their revenue and have a presence in all major markets. Their functionality must be above average, and their technology and scalability must be leading-edge. They must offer an MDM product that supports the functional needs of utilities operating in multiple market structures (integrated and unbundled), and focuses on customer-related, asset-related and market-related consumption data use. Because of the diverse drivers for AMI and MDM deployments, buyers worldwide continue to have a wide-ranging set of needs and wants, which challenges providers to develop a single product that is equally appealing to buyers in different regions.
"Leaders in this market must pair advanced technology with broad offerings, rich functionality and the capability to configure their solutions to different needs — as well as offer their solutions on-premises and in the cloud. They also should be able to demonstrate the financial viability needed to fuel R&D to support new technology requirements (such as Web services and service-oriented architecture) and to enable business process integration across functional silos in utilities.”
Source: Itron Inc.
