For small businesses, refurbishing hardware is 'green IT' 22 August, 2008 By Liam Lahey

Andrew Fife, marketing manager for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Untangle Inc., cited his company's recent joint initiative with the Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) dubbed 'Installfest for Schools', as a possible solution.

Last March in the San Francisco Bay area, Untangle refurbished 350 older classroom computers with Ubuntu Linux for northern California schools.

"The primary goal of the Installfest was to give children in disadvantaged neighborhoods the same access to technology that students in wealthy school districts grow up with," Fife explained. "However, the event was also about curbing waste . . . Linux requires so much less hardware than Windows that you can run the latest version of Ubuntu on a Pentium-III with 256 RAM and a 20 GB hard drive . . . you can take a computer that was bought to run Windows 98 or Millennium Edition and run the latest Linux software on it . . . so it extends the useful life of PCs for many years."

An estimated 132 million PCs were bought in the year 2000 alone and none of them can run Microsoft's Windows Vista OS. But older hardware works great with GNU/Linux and extending the life of these PCs would keep thousands of tons of toxic electronic waste out of landfills, he continued.

Meanwhile, schools typically have scarce resources to spend on proprietary software licenses. In fact, education funding cutbacks in the U.S. could create an opportunity for the GNU/Linux desktop movement to establish itself within schools, Fife added.

"The average middle-class school has a pretty strong Microsoft lock and emphasis . . . however the poorer schools just don't have any other choice, they're just looking to get online and provide some technology access (to students)," he said. "The program has been successful in low-income schools. But even in some wealthier schools, particularly in Silicon Valley, you tend to have folks working in the industry that use Linux themselves and like the idea of their children being exposed to it."

Also noteworthy, Untangle's open source software -- Untangle for Windows -- is designed to turn any Windows desktop into a network gateway. The small business solution could block spam, spyware, viruses, adware and unwanted content on the network. With Untangle for Windows, system integrators and consultants would have a great diagnostic tool that could sit on their own laptops and plugged into any network to check for viruses and other malware.

Modern IT systems rely on a complicated mix of people, networks and hardware. As such, a green computing initiative must be systemic in nature and address increasingly sophisticated problems, said Fife. Elements of such a solution may comprise items such as end-user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, disposal of electronic waste, telecommuting, and virtualization of server resources, energy use, thin client solutions, and return on investment.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst for The Enderle Group, said most of the green IT focus is on energy conservation as a way to contain energy costs.

"There is some interest in recycling but with energy prices high, inflation going up, and pressures on revenue, I think that much of that will take a back burner to cost savings for much of this year," he said. "The Linux move on servers is largely to reduce UNIX software costs and probably doesn't have that much to do with conserving anything but cash which is largely what is also driving repurposing/refurbishing as older hardware is less energy efficient."

Meanwhile, according to two recent AMI-Partners studies, American small to midsized businesses are increasingly turning to 'green IT' initiatives as SMB bottom lines are being redefined to include sustainability.

"U.S. SMBs will see a 17 percent increase in PC shipments and a whopping 40 percent increase in server shipments over the next four years," said AMI New York City-based research analyst, Vittesh Kalambi. "SMBs are gradually becoming convinced about the positive outcome of green IT in reducing overall running costs, TCO (total cost of ownership) and increasing savings. As such, SMB bottom-lines are being redefined to include sustainability."

The studies, "U.S. Small Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment" and "2007 U.S. Medium Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment", highlight major trends in the context of current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and spending.

For instance, AMI said over the next 12 months more than 50 percent of small businesses (SBs with up to 99 employees) and 91 percent of medium businesses (MBs with 100-999 employees) intend to purchase PCs (either desktops or notebooks). Green computing is broadly defined as the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. The primary objective of such a program is to account for "the triple bottom line". This is an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational and societal success with an aim to cut use of hazardous materials and maximize efficiency of product life while promoting recyclability [sic]. Thus, the key driver for SMBs embracing green IT measures is cost savings, AMI-Partners said.