How green are you?

Okie I know this piece started with a rhetorical question but it is inspired

by a movie that I saw as a kid. It was a hauntingly beautiful movie called 'How

Green Is My Valley?' This was about a child who lived in a lush verdant valley,

and how it is overtaken by miners, industries and how in the end, the dejected

kid wonders how green his valley was.

Drawing a parallel with the film, IT vendors have been propagating green

products and technologies for a while now. According to survey data from the

Symantec Worldwide 2009 Green IT Report, senior-level IT executives in India

reported significant interest in green IT strategies and solutions, attributed

to both cost reduction and environmental responsibility. IT decision makers are

increasingly justifying green IT solutions by more than just cost and IT

efficiency benefits. Also as per the report, replacing old equipment was the

most popular strategy, with 88 percent reporting new energy efficient equipment

as part of their strategy.

So while all of this sounds good, what is the ground level situation? Most

SPs who we spoke to, for our story in DQ Channels, said that while they are more

than keen to sell 'green', they do not see the market demand matching up. The

biggest drawback is the price. Most SPs feel that if the vendors priced 'green'

products at par with normal products then a lot of traction is possible in the

market. Food for thought? I do think so. If 'green' IT has to be accepted

widely, then I will agree that the vendors need to realize that just pitching

the environmental benefits or better RoI will only take them that far. Whether

it is an enterprise or a SOHO buyer, everyone in India is price conscious and

till that divide is not bridged selling 'green' will be a tough one.

While on trends, the good news is that the IT market has started seeing an

upswing big time. According to the latest report by IDC, the overall India PC

market sales touched 22.40 lakh units during the January-March 2010 quarter

recording a 33 percent YoY (Q1 2010 over Q1 2009) and a 14 percent QoQ (Q1 2010

over Q4 2009) increase. In this growth, it was the desktops which clearly lead

the show. The desktop PC sales stood at 14.36 lakh units and accounted for

nearly two-thirds of total PC sales. The statistics clearly represent 18 percent

growth YoY. The notebook segment also brought in a lot to cheer and it grew at

72 percent YoY clocking 8.03 lakh shipments, the highest in a quarter.

What these growth figures clearly suggest is that both the consumer and

commercial segments responded well to the growth in the economy by posting rise

in sales. Here's wishing that the good times continue and that we turn green

really soon.

Shivangi yadav


shivangiy@cybermedia.co.in