Green PCs the answer to carbon tax price hikes

Stan Beer
Monday, 14 March 2011 14:06

Business IT - Technology

PCs represent more than 30% of the power costs of corporations therefore it stands to reason that if you're not using a power minimisation system for your enterprise workstations you're pouring money down the drain. That's the contention of the visiting boss of a leading power management software provider.

According to John Scumniotales, CEO of Verdiem, the widespread recognition that enterprises need to take action to reduce their carbon footprint and minimise their power costs has lead to a boom in Green software of the variety his company provides.

Verdiem specialises in power saving software for PCs and while it is still a relatively small player in the scheme of the market, with 600 customers and 1.6 million seats, year on year growth has been bubbling along nicely at 20% with huge potential, according to Scumniotales.

"We see a market opportunity for between 400 million and 800 million desktop PCs that we could be managing," says Scumniotales.

While Verdiem counts large enterprises among its customers, such as Cadbury, The Gap and a big 4 bank here in Australia, the company's biggest customers to date have been in the US government and education sectors.

Australian Government legislation scheduled for July 2012 involves setting a target of 400KWH a year per government PC user, a significant reduction from the current usage of 630KWH.

Scumniotales, in Australia to present to a number of federal agencies in support of a campaign called Target 400, so branded by Verdiem and its Australian distributor Merito, says 400KHW represents a reduction of 35% power consumption in government.

"There are about 120,000 federal government PCs excluding Defence, and about 230,000 if you include Defence," says Scumniotales.

"Looking at the results of 700,000 PCs over 250 customers using our software, we can achieve 370KWH per user per annum."

Extrapolating those results to the commercial world, according to Scumniotales, will result in a typical ROI for Verdiem users of less than 12 months.

"With the cost of electricity increasing and potential carbon taxes, this technology is not an option but a necessity. It is also an opportunity for IT to lead an initiative that will pay back to the business in real dollars."