| With the growing concern over global warming, and | | | | most desktop machines use only about 10% of their |
| sustainable energy usage, organisations and | | | | power with the rest of the time spent idle. |
| corporates the world over need to find ways to | | | | The Canadian company Useful, realised there was an |
| reduce their power consumption and their | | | | opportunity to make better use of this idle time and |
| contributions to CO2 gas emissions. Governments | | | | developed their Userful Multiplier technology that |
| everywhere are considering introducing legislation | | | | allows up to 10 users to make use of 1 desktop PC |
| forcing a reduction in carbon emissions and other | | | | at the same time, each with their own mouse, |
| harmful waste, while energy utilities are looking to | | | | keyboard and monitor. |
| raise tariffs at higher than inflation rates as demand | | | | The technology leverages the robust and secure |
| for energy grows. | | | | Linux operating system and provides its users with |
| In some countries, like South Africa, penalties may be | | | | unrivaled cost and power savings, not to mention a |
| introduced if energy users do not reduce their | | | | plethora of open source applications for every need. |
| consumption by as much as 10% and in 2008 the | | | | Userful recently got much attention for its roll-out of |
| effects of growing energy usage where seen with | | | | 357 000 desktops to schools in Brazil. One of the |
| widespread, rolling blackouts, across Johannesburg, | | | | largest Linux desktop deployments in the world to |
| South Africa's economic heartland. | | | | date. |
| Information Technology to be One of the Biggest | | | | Savings of 60% in up-front costs, 80% in annual |
| Contributors to Greenhouse Gas Emissions | | | | power savings and additional savings in ongoing |
| An October 2008 report by Mckinsey & | | | | administration and support costs as compared to a |
| Company predicts that by 2020 Information | | | | traditional PC-per-workstation solution all contributed |
| Technology and related industries, such as | | | | to making the decision to use Userful Multiplier on |
| telecommunications will be one of the biggest | | | | 356,800 new workstations for Brazil's school an |
| contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. This is | | | | obvious one. Replacing 10 computer with 1 PC also |
| partly due to the rapid growth in Asia and the | | | | reduces computer hardware waste ("e-waste") by up |
| resultant increasing use of technology. | | | | to 80%, further decreasing ITs environmental |
| Despite this however, information technology is | | | | footprint. |
| perhaps the easiest place for corporates and | | | | But thats not all, as they say on the infomercials, |
| organisations to reduce their carbon footprint without | | | | according Sean Rousseau, Marketing Manager at |
| an significant increase in cost or reduction in available | | | | Userful, "This deployment alone saves more than |
| resources. The mega-trend in IT, currently, is server | | | | 170,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually, the same as |
| and desktop consolidation and the power and costs | | | | taking 28,000 cars off the road, or planting 41,000 |
| saving available, today, are significant. | | | | acres of trees" . |
| Desktop Virtualisation - the next Hot Technology | | | | Desktop Virtualisation with Userful Multiplier |
| The server virtualisation space has received the lion's | | | | So with the growing need to reduce power usage, it |
| share of attention by the media and the hardware | | | | is highly likely that desktop virtualisation will start to |
| vendors. I covered the benefits of server | | | | receive much more coverage in the coming years |
| consolidation and virtualisation in a previous post here. | | | | and Userful Multiplier will play an important roll in this |
| An area where not much attention has been paid, is | | | | market. |
| on the desktop virtualisation side. The fact is, that | | | | |