Former Salesforce.com Channel Chief Joins eMeter
Napiltonia is credited with growing Salesforce.com's powerful channel and helping it hone its cloud strategy. He said he's been tasked to do the same for eMeter, which makes software for smart grid and utility management. Essentially, eMeter makes software that extrapolates and crunches data from electrical, gas and water meters and shows utilities their power consumption levels, trends, outages and other information utilized to manage their use. eMeter also has a consumer play.
Napiltonia takes the position of senior vice president of worldwide sales and alliances at eMeter and is responsible for the global distribution strategy and customer success. He is charged with developing both eMeter's channels but also its roadmap for the future.
"Part of why I joined eMeter was to determine its cloud strategy," he said, adding that eMeter currently offers its software in three flavors: traditional software, appliance-based and in the cloud.
As for why he left Salesforce.com, Napiltonia referred to the old saying "always leave on top," and added that eMeter's reach is too hard to deny.
"Salesforce helped pioneer and change the industry, while eMeter is helping pioneer and change how the world consumes electricity, gas and water," he said. "Here I'm going to transform a way of life."
With Salesforce.com, where Napiltonia was senior vice president of worldwide channels and alliances, he built the first global partner ecosystem for cloud computing and forged alliances with Accenture, Wipro, Deloitte and other worldwide and regional system integrators. Additionally, he expanded its solution providers globally and drove Salesforce.com's reseller strategy forward. Prior to Salesforce.com, Napiltonia headed the channel organization at BEA Systems.
Now with eMeter, Napiltonia said he sees the cloud as just one delivery mechanism for the San Mateo, Calif.-based company's Smart Grid Management software, which offers detailed gas, power and water usage and can help reduce energy bills and waste. He's investigating the cloud's role within smart grid technologies and how the world's utilities will take advantage of the emerging technology.
Another area that drew Napiltonia to eMeter, he said, was what he called "the green machine," or the environmental impact of utilities and how eMeter's technology can help reduce consumption and waste.
Currently, he said, eMeter does about 35 percent to 40 percent of its business indirectly through the channel. Napiltonia said he hopes to bump it to an even 50-50.
"There's a huge play here and part of my goal is to define what the partner model is," he said, adding that smart grid offers solution providers and partners not just the opportunity to install eMeter's software but to work through the data it presents to customers and offer solutions.
"There's no longer value in just selling," he said. "Now the value is: you've got a set of problems, the technology is the enabler and here's how I help you resolve those problems."
In his new role with eMeter, Napiltonia said he wants to make the smart grid a reality and give eMeter customers and partners a choice in how they deploy and consume its software.
Overall, Napiltonia said that utilities like electricity, gas and water touch everyone in the world, so in his new role he's on a much larger stage. And now he's recruiting partners who want to capture a piece of the growing smart grid pie.
"The smart grid is the new cloud," he said. "From a market opportunity perspective it's 10 times larger. It touches and affects everyone in the world. The only other thing you can say that about is Oxygen."