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