Itron’s $838m acquisition of Silver Spring Networks (SSN) back in September raised a few eyebrows, but the impact has been immediate. SSN apparently brought $1.4bn in backorders to Itron, a company looking to capitalize on the smart grid trend and which has just reported quarterly revenue up 27%. Itron reports that without SSN’s contribution, Q1 2018 revenue would only have been up 9%. Now part of a ‘Networks’ segment that generated $86m in the quarter, SSN also appears to have added some 13m endpoints to Itron’s portfolio – which now numbers 29m. Total revenue grew to $607m in Q1, up that 27% from Q1 2017’s $478m, and Itron reeled off a list of notable wins in the past year. The…