Microsoft

Opportunities for green tech entrepreneurs bloom with Microsoft initiatives

Green sells, whether the product in question is a hybrid car or a laptop computer. Tech firms know this, but they also face growing scepticism as a result of the the deluge of greenwash we are all being subjected to.

Only about 10 percent of PCs used by organisations have power management enabled, and as a result are wasting large amounts of electricity.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a tool to allow network administrators to remotely change power management settings on Windows XP, and thus save energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The EPA developed the tool because Microsoft did not give system administrators the ability to natively manage power settings on XP systems over a network, and this may be hindering adoption of the power management functions in many companies.

Much as I am skeptical of bold-faced claims like "Vista is green" it does appear that Steve Ballmer is talking some sense on the subject. In Computerworld coverage of CeBIT this week it was notable that rather than talking about product Ballmer talked about best practices.

Microsoft, with 70,000 employees spread out across the world, is deep into a corporate-wide evaluation of how it can become a more environmentally friendly corporation.

Microsoft, with 70,000 employees spread out across the world, is deep into a corporate-wide evaluation of how it can become a more environmentally friendly corporation.

The effort encompasses hardware, software, datacentres and Microsoft's role as a corporate citizen. The hope is to initiate Microsoft's people, products and programmes into the green revolution.

Microsoft, with 70,000 employees spread out across the world, is deep into a corporatewide evaluation of how it can become a more environmentally friendly corporation.

It was only a couple of months ago that I dinged Microsoft for not taking Green issues seriously enough in a blog titled Where is Microsoft’s Green Story? Well its been in the hopper for a while, but I wanted to make sure I credited Microsoft with getting its act together before the end of the year. There is some rather splendid news to report.

Microsoft is determined to lose a reputation for workload inefficiency, and the some of its story makes for great motherhood and apple pie tale but why was there no menmtion of green issues at its bigges EUropean end user event? A day and a half and the only conversation about greening was at the dinner table....