The CIS transformation represents a total market opportunity of more than $4 billion, anticipates the clean-tech market research firm.

Some utilities are considering CIS transformation as a costly and risky affair, while some have taken a wait-and-see approach.

In general, while utilities are faced with moving forward on CIS transformation at the accelerated pace of smart grid implementations, they are slowed by the legacy of heavy systems and software that, in many cases, are more than two decades old.

Senior analyst Eric Woods said: “The near-term impact will be felt by the larger players, mainly because they tend to be located in states that are more advanced in terms of market deregulation. Many of these large utilities have already been involved in deep IT upgrades over the last five years, including large-scale data center renovations.”

Particularly in the US, this massive CIS and billing upgrade will lead to heightened competition as the leading system in use today, Customer/1, is phased out of the competitive landscape. Many smart grid utilities will have no choice but to fully replace Customer/1, leaving a vacuum that established enterprise software vendors, such as SAP and Oracle, will move aggressively to fill.

The research firm also forecasts that by 2015, SAP and Oracle will control 43 percent of the market, with telecom service providers accounting for another 17 percent.

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