Posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
The most important reason for focusing on the consumer for the home energy management market, is that the end consumer market will be a whole lot bigger. Utilities may or may not end up offering their customers energy management products. If they do, many are likely to offer consumers a choice of providers. And the company who makes their devices the most consumer-friendly (as opposed to utility-friendly) will be able to win out in those cases competitively even if it is through the utility channel. As Gartner analyst Zarco Sumic told us, in the long run, “The vendors that will dominate will be the ones who know how to market, sell and meet the needs of the consumer space. It is a consumer technology play. It is not a utility play.”
