Green IT to shake up Irish tech sector
06-02-2008
by Deirdre McArdle

Green IT is increasingly at the top of global business agendas, while here in Ireland IDC says the "greening of IT" will become a key influence on the tech sector.

The influence of green IT is likely to be felt in many ways, according to the research firm, which says the issue is set to alter the dynamics of the industry over time.

Users, vendors and data centres are all liable to face different challenges in this new greener environment. Vendors, for example, will need to increasingly focus on enhancing the efficiency of their equipment by reducing electricity requirements. They will also need to ensure that their products are designed with recycling in mind.

On the plus side, as more and more users seek out suppliers or vendors with green credentials, those vendors that do embrace green practices are likely to gain competitive advantage.

In order to decrease their carbon footprint, users are likely to try and extend the life cycles of their products, such as PCs. Whether or not this will have a knock-on effect on the overall equipment market remains to be seen. On the other hand, devices to monitor and reduce electricity use are likely to become popular among Irish businesses.

Automation and IT will also be used increasingly to measure, control and reduce power consumption in non-IT devices, and IDC suggests that the speed at which these solutions are adopted will coincide directly with rising electricity prices. As these types of solutions become commonplace, the research firm predicts that IT managers will be put in charge of the electricity bill, initially for just the data centre, but eventually for the whole organisation.

Ireland has witnessed a real boom in data centres recently, with super-sized facilities like those built by Microsoft and Eircom springing up in the past three months. On the one hand Ireland's attractiveness as a location for data centres may take a hit if our rising electricity prices don't level off and awareness of just how much electricity is required to power these large facilities grows. On the flip side, if organisations with large data centre capacity can successfully demonstrate that greater use of external managed services and a reduction in in-house IT usage can result in a reduction in the overall power requirement, then IDC predicts a far more positive outcome for the industry.

"IDC believes that, at the moment, green IT is as much about cutting energy costs as saving the planet. This should be particularly true in Ireland in the next year or so with electricity costs being so high," said IDC Ireland consultant John Gilsenan. "Unfortunately for the industry, it is likely that this will bring further attention to IT as a cost rather than a benefit. On the other hand, if IT solutions can be seen as the means to monitor energy usage and, therefore, reduce it, then IT may be seen in a more favourable light."