Head to head: “How important are Green IT issues to the end-user?”

DISTRIBUTOR: Cellnet

Aidan Fitzgerald, IBM business manager

As a distributor, we are seeing an increased focus by the manufacturers on Green issues. This is driven by the increase of questions raised by resellers from the end-users. The days of an end-user making a decision based around the speeds and feeds and initial costs alone are now long gone, with equal importance being placed on questions around subjects such as space utilisation, power utilisation and virtualisation at the very least. The end-users are becoming increasingly aware for the environmental impact their decisions have and as such want to research any impact. An obvious focus and major effect on the environment is the amount of power that’s required to run the IT infrastructure of any major organisation. Companies now have a better comprehension of what types of IT equipment will give them the best option with power usage – this is now something the resellers are using to cost justify IT spend on presentation to the end-users. This also drives purchasing behaviour towards virtualisation, which gives the end-users better utilisation of resources, reduced carbon footprint due to reduced power costs and purchase of newer, more environmentally friendly models.