Microsoft and Google duel over energy management

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>> Do you see this as a very big market opportunity, a business opportunity that's going to, you know, drive a lot of revenue, or is this kind of an experiment or a project? I think maybe both of you have different takes on that.

>> I think it is going to be a big market opportunity because I think there's going to be a lot of players involved. And you can already see that. I mean, we know that there are hundreds of companies building devices that will either measure or control energy use. And we know of many large companies, too, that are doing the same thing. And then we know of hundreds of startups that are trying to do something with the data. So we think that there is going to be a change in the way people interact with their data. From our standpoint, we see this as a part of our mission to bring access to data to people. And we think that, you know, Google has built an entire, you know, company around this idea of bringing access to information. And we see this as one more piece of information that's very important.

>> But you said before, your team has said before that PowerMeter, there's not necessarily a specific business model for that. Is that still the case or has that changed?

>> Yeah, that's still the case. Remember how the company started. When Larry and Sergey first were working on search algorithms, there are no business model. They were trying to do something interesting that they thought was useful to people. And that's the take we're taking at this too. We are looking to get as many people to see this and see what develops.

>> So maybe if there's not a business model now, there might be one day for PowerMeter. You might be using it in a commercial standpoint.

>> It's conceivable. I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about that, truthfully, right now. I spend our time thinking about how we make the data talk to people more, something they can understand, and getting more of it to more people.

>> Right. And I think that's a little bit different perspective than Microsoft and homes. I think you guys look very closely at the business model and how you're going to make it into a division that makes money at Microsoft.

>> Yeah, so, you know, when we first looked at this opportunity three years ago, we saw these changes that the industry was facing, the growing demands, which has been talked about, as well as the green government policies, which are creating constraints on how utilities can address those growing demands. No longer can utilities throw out coal power plants at the same frequency and size that they used to in the past. And in their place, regulators are asking for more energy efficiency and zero carbon energy sources, which, in turn, often times means solar and wind, which, of course, are variable and inconsistent. And our approach has been to provide a platform and an application to allow those consumers and these utilities to meet those energy efficiency demands and to shift discretionary usage to time when electricity is more cheap and plentiful. And in doing so, we can monetize that through the use of data and advertising business models, but also selling products and services back to the local utility where a lot of the value is accruing in terms of these types of solutions. So yes, we are in this for a business reason, and it's very core to how we conduct ourselves in the industry.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====