Smith Presents the Future of Meter Billing CRM&CIS

[Chicago, 31 March 2003]

At the closing session of the Spintelligent Metering Billing CRM/CIS 2004 Conference held in San Diego, CA, Tim Smith, PhD sketched the future for the technologies serving the utilities industry at the

Dr. Smith used specific data to demonstrate that the evolution of the Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) industry is following the technology lifecycle outlined in Geoffrey Moore’s books Crossing the Chasm and Entering the Tornado. As a special treat for the audience, Dr. Smith revealed analytical data that outlined expected sales of AMR units for the coming years.

Drawing parallels between the CIS industry and the larger ERP industry, Dr. Smith stressed that future growth in this industry will require stronger value propositions or be dependent upon the retirement of legacy systems. The potential to improve the value proposition by either modularizing specific highly analytical components or adding higher-level metrics for executive decision making was outlined.

In looking at the long-term future, Dr. Smith presented parallels between the AMR and CIS industry and the retailer Point-Of-Sale (POS) industry. Audience members left the session buzzing with discussions concerning POS industry, and the implications for the AMR and CIS industry.

About Spintelligent
Spintelligent is a specialist integrated media company focused on the international water, gas and electric utility industries. In particular, Spintelligent is recognized as the key provider of media for the global utilities metering industry. The core activities comprise print and electronic publishing; conference and exhibition organization and management; and research focused on customer-end technologies for electricity, water and gas utilities.

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