Green IT?

One of our colleagues Mike Hughes attended an IT@cork event on Green IT this morning to talk about what Microsoft is doing for environmental sustainability both as a company and as a software developer producing products that are safe and energy efficient. There were also presentations from Tom Raftery on how the Cork Internet eXchange (CIX) has been designed to reduce power consumption by as much as possible and James Governor, Industry analyst from Redmonk on what role software can have in environmental sustainability. Attendance was very high and there were a lot of ideas and discussion on how industries could adopt green initiatives ranging from printing on both sides of the page  to sugestions as to how Microsoft might change it's packaging! Presentations from the event will be posted here: https://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=110

To find out what Microsoft is doing on the green front, you can read the brief paper here:  https://www.microsoft.com/About/CorporateCitizenship/US/ResponsibleLeadership/EnvironmentalSustainability.mspx

Co-incidentally, Steve Balmer opened CeBit yesterday with keynote on green IT which is a theme for the show this year....

"Software will make our homes and buildings more intelligent, so we use only the energy we need for lighting, heating, and cooling. It'll enable businesses to redesign products and processes to use less energy and fewer natural resources. High-performance computing will help researchers understand the effects of climate change and mitigate its impacts."