"Sun is doing more and more with being a provider of open source in this enterprise infrastructure space, " says Raven Zachary, an open-source analyst at 451 Group.
The change came as Itron's research group in Paris realized it could exploit inexpensive new wireless chips and open-source software to create a so-called mesh network of electric meters that passed information among themselves, like firemen in a bucket brigade, instead of relying on expensive and less reliable individual connections to the Internet.