Smart-grid-in-a-box, courtesy of IBM and eMeter

You knew it was coming sooner or later: IBM hardware has turned up at the heart of a new smart grid "appliance," which was put together by IBM and eMeter, a self-professed global leader in smart grid management software. This particular development caught my attention for two reasons:

1. The eMeter Smart Grid Appliance, which is due out by the end of the second quarter, should allow utilities of all sorts (gas, water and electric) to get smart grid technology out in the field where it could do some good more quickly. The development partners say the solution, which includes templates for smart grid "best practices" and adapters for various advanced meter infrastructure technologies, can cut implementation time to about one year from six months. They also claim it will cut 60 percent off potential deployment costs. The platform for the solution is the IBM Power 7 server architecture. It combines IBM Tivoli Monitoring, WebSphere Application Server, eMeter Energy IP and Energy Engage.
2. Gary Bloom is back! As of today, the brand-new CEO of eMeter is none other than Gary Bloom, the former chief executive of storage management software company Veritas and former executive vice president of Oracle. Here's what Bloom had to say about re-emerging in the eMeter press release: "The utility industry is in the midst of a major technology transformation as they upgrade to the smart grid, and eMeter is delivering best-in-class smart grid software solutions. I am excited to combine my enterprise software experience with eMeter's market-leading product set, world-class partners like Siemens and IBM, and an impressive roster of customers across the world."