Electronix Express Newsletter

September/October 2008 Issue

Welcome to the September/October 2008 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter

STORIES

Study Seeks How Green-Minded It Decision Makers Are

Where Mobile Devices Are Headed

Linksys Aims To Make Home Networking 'Green'

Intel Talks Up Our Wire-Free, Robot-Ruled Future

Putting Old Cell Phones Out to Pasture?

Small Businesses Using Technology To Go Green

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1. Study Seeks How Green-Minded It Decision Makers Are

Do "green" products and marketing matter in the enterprise technology industry? According to GreenFactor, a global green enterprise IT study released by Strategic Oxygen, green products are not only highly important for the environment, they are potentially profitable. More than 70 per cent of the global respondents said they probably or definitely would increase their preference for a brand's green products if they were convinced of the positive impact on the environment and business. Almost 60 per cent said they would expect to pay a premium for green products.

The importance of green IT to IT buyers varies country by country. India's respondents, for instance, emerged highest as both expecting to pay at least a five percent premium on green IT and as having a preference for it if they can be convinced of positive impact on both the environment and their budgets. At the same time, nearly one quarter, 24 per cent of respondents in Germany believe buying green products has no real impact on the environment, generally twice that of any other country. Findings like this imply that universal, global green messaging is ineffective.

Not surprisingly, perceived economics is the biggest barrier to green adoption. In nine of 11 countries polled, price was the top barrier. Despite varying degrees of green products, programs and marketing initiatives, there is no one clear green IT brand leader globally. However, when IT decision-makers and IT influencers were asked which brands they most associated with green technology, a handful of companies consistently came out on top: Apple, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Sony, and Dell. Globally, Microsoft and Google have a statistically significant higher perception of being green than all other software and Internet companies included in the study.

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2. Where Mobile Devices Are Headed

According to ABI Research's vice-president and research director Stuart Carlaw, "The mobile device market is the largest consumer electronics market globally, generating one billion units shipped per annum. It is expanding not consolidating, becoming micro-segmented, emphasis is rapidly swinging from hardware and there is a multitude of disruptive influences where nobody, no matter what position they hold, will be in a comfort zone in three to four years time."

There are divergent market trends for both developed and developing markets. The developed market has become extremely saturated, highly competitive, highly segmented even micro segmented and has huge amounts of innovation. One of the reasons for the saturation in the developed market is feature set explosion. For example, Carlaw cited that in 2004 the Motorola Razr was the must-have device. The Razr was 2G, voice-centric, had no smart operating system (OS) and had limited capabilities. Fast forward to 2007, the must-have device was Apple's iPhone which was a converged device with 2.5G, a smart OS and Wi-Fi.

However, when you look into devices in the future, ones in 2007 and ones in 2010 will be radically different products to users. Mobile broadband technology and new form factors, a diversion from the stable concept of a phone, changes the device market in several ways. To summarize the future forecast for mobile phones, Carlaw added that devices of the future could be an online lifestyle extension with 4G-enabled or mobile broadband-enabled handsets that have improved screens, smart OS and a very intuitive UI as well as multiple radios for WAN and LAN.

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3. Linksys Aims To Make Home Networking 'Green'

Linksys, a division of Cisco has begun rolling out eco-friendlier packaging for its consumer networking products, and it has received Energy Star certified ratings on power adapters included with more than 30 of its home networking products. "We have taken the most important steps in our continuing efforts to help become a more green company: changing packaging and reducing the energy used by our products," said Marna Bullard, vice-president of worldwide marketing, for Irvine, Calif.-based Linksys.

The new eco-friendlier packaging and materials provides more than 40 per cent reduction in waste materials compared to the previously offered packaging. Linksys said this is estimated to be equal to saving 790 acres of pine or fir forest trees per year, or taking 3,000 cars off the road per year. Linksys received Energy Star certification on more than 30 of its consumer networking products including wired and wireless routers, gateways, game adapters and modems -- products that meet strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy. The energy consumed by the power adapters has been cut almost in half. For example, a router used 4.6 watts of power and a new router with one of the Energy Star certified power adapters can use as little as 2.6 watts of power. This equates to a power reduction estimation between 14MW and 17MW. That is enough power to light 14,000 houses for one full day.

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4. Intel Talks Up Our Wire-Free, Robot-Ruled Future

Intel outlined an ambitious vision of future technologies. Wires have no place in Intel's vision of the future. It also shared its vision of coming decades full of robots, rapidly accelerating technology, and morphing gadgets that are whatever you want them to be. Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, spoke about and demonstrated several technologies he said would be part of an evolution that closes the gap between humans and machines by 2050.

Perhaps the most practical of the concept products Intel debuted was the Tesla-esque Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL). This device could enable users to recharge their laptops or mobile handsets simply by being in proximity of a transmitter.

The chipmaker also demonstrated two robot prototypes. One robot demonstrates the technology that gives robots the sense of touch.. The second robot demonstrated technology that enabled it to recognize faces as well as interpret and execute generic commands with state-of-the-art motion planning, manipulations, perception and artificial intelligence. "The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago. There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not-so-distant future," Rattner said.

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5. Putting Old Cell Phones Out to Pasture?

Cell phone users typically get new handsets every 18 to 24 months. What do they do with the old devices? Sometimes they're retired to desk drawers, never to be seen again. Even worse, sometimes they end up in landfills, bleeding toxins into the environment. According to industry estimates, nearly 200 million cell phones will be sold in the U.S. this year. A large number of these buyers are already wireless subscribers with handsets, so more than 100 million phones will be retired. If improperly dumped in a landfill, they can release toxic materials from their batteries, small fluorescent lights and other parts. Options for recycling old handsets exist.

But getting more consumers to think about their old phones the way they look at an empty soft drink can, as a product to be recycled, isn't so easy. Despite industry-sponsored collection programs, "most consumers still do not know where or how they can recycle their cell phone," said EPA spokesperson Latisha Petteway. Most people hang on to their old cell phones thinking they may use them again. Unfortunately, many people end up with an unused cell phone that could be recycled sitting in a drawer. These handsets also represent a lost opportunity, because discarded phones often are still functional, and parts of non-working ones are reusable. Persuading consumers to recycle their phones is part of a larger e-waste problem that environmental activists, governments and companies are trying to address as they grapple with a tide of unwanted consumer electronics.

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6. Small Businesses Using Technology To Go Green

According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey of 250 IT decision-makers from small businesses across the United States, 60 percent of them said that they were saving money by using sustainable technologies.

Findings include 38 percent of respondents reporting that their companies were more focused on being environmentally friendly than they were one year ago. As well, an overwhelming majority (69 percent) of respondents reported that environmentally friendly practices were important for their business. The survey results revealed some practices that small businesses saw as most beneficial for the environment. For example, respondents identified a paperless office as the number one green IT practice that they felt also offered the greatest cost savings.

Other sustainable practices that survey respondents also believed represented the most savings potential for their business include 28 percent said they would set-up standards to manage power consumption for computers, such as setting computers or monitors to sleep mode after a period of not being used. Another 26 percent said they would allow employees to telecommute while 15 percent said they would move towards using mobile technology and conduct live meetings that share resources over the web such as presentations (14 percent). Also, 16 percent of respondents said they would upgrade server infrastructure with the most energy-efficient technology available.

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