Green Google and the Cisco Channel

The blogosphere has been full of reactions to Google’s renewable energy initiative. If you’re still coming out of a turkey-induced slumber, the company announced plans to invest huge quantities of money in the development of renewable energy technologies, especially solar, wind, and geothermal. Some of the reactions are very complimentary; others more skeptical. But I had a completely different reaction jump into my mind when I saw the announcement. This is going to be the beginning of an entirely new channel opportunity, at the broadest level. Just as in the IT space, someone is going to have to function as the integrator and, I’m sorry, but I can’t picture Eric Schmidt climbing a ladder to get onto my roof. Other companies will end up doing that. In this scenario, the role of the service provider is played by the gas and electric companies, complete with demarcs and everything. The channel plays itself, albeit in a somewhat adapted form with different technologies. But their mission will be to understand the needs of the end user, separate the marketing hype from what’s real, propose the solution, make the sale, do the installation, and take the first call when something goes haywire. Sounds familiar, huh? Yes, it kind of plays out a lot like the networking sector of the IT industry. If I were a Cisco channel partner, I’d keep my eye on this space, at the very least. Again, at the tactical, feet-on-the street level, the technology is obviously a whole different ball game. But I don’t know that it’s all that different at the more strategic level. And the technical skills can be purchased – or at least rented. A few years ago, some people looked at me funny when I speculated that IT security partners would eventually get involved in premises-level security involving alarms and such. But there are now companies that have moved in that direction. Now I admit, some types of renewable energy are more suited to centralized operations in which the output is simply sold to the “grid.” But that’d not always going to be the case for every energy option. Since energy is basically a network unto itself, the potential for synergy appears to be quite strong. I don’t think it will happen overnight, but I do think it will happen faster than most people might think. It will probably emerge in new construction where home networking and solar panels can be bundled into a unified offering. But as private homes and offices become increasingly bandwidth-hungry and energy-hungry, I think the demand will be there!