Global green perceptions
The new Green Factor survey on the environmental perceptions of global IT buyers shows that some brands shine more, some countries care more and most buyers need more convincing to go green. This first global “green” enterprise IT study found that “green” products are not only highly important for the environment, they are potentially profitable. More than 70 percent 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 percent said they would expect to pay a premium for “green” products.
While there are significant “green” IT opportunities, there are statistically significant differences between countries. This means that many of the “green global campaigns” being implemented by IT brands will not be successful. One of the issues is that IT vendors must demonstrate that there is a “return on green.”
Conducted in the first quarter of 2008, Green Factor surveyed more than 3,500 enterprise IT decision-makers in 11 countries. The study looked at 26 enterprise technology brands to determine decision-makers’ perceptions of “green” IT, products and marketing. Additional information and video commentary on the results can be found at www.greenfactorstudy.com.
The study had four major findings:
• No single enterprise IT brand is perceived as a clear “green” leader globally. In fact, there is no statistical difference between the Top 7 leaders — Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Sony. Globally, Microsoft and Google have a higher perception of being “green” than all other software and Internet companies included in the study.
• 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 of respondents in Germany believe buying “green” products has no real impact on the environment, generally twice that of any other country. Findings such as this imply that global “green” messaging is ineffective.
• There are disconnects within organizations themselves on the importance of “green.” For instance, CXOs (top managers) globally chose “price” as a barrier to “green,” with a lower frequency than all other titles surveyed, and CIOs state they “definitely will” look to purchase some “green” products this next year at a higher rate than other respondents. This suggests that IT brands should target top executives in order to convince them to direct and empower their teams to include “green” IT into specifications.
• Not surprisingly, “perceived economics” is the biggest barrier to “green” adoption. In nine out of 11 countries polled, price was the top barrier. Marketers must focus on better communicating total cost of ownership and overall value to potential buyers.
India emerges as the study’s leader in “green” IT potential, as a higher percentage of respondents in that country expect to pay at least a five percent premium on “green” IT or “definitely would” increase their preference for “green” IT with proven ROI (return on investment) — or both. The remaining countries fall progressively further behind India due to a tendency to lean strongly toward either an expectation to pay at least five percent more or stating they would definitely prefer “green” with proven ROI — but rarely both. In fact, buyers in some of the largest economies and B-to-B markets for technology are not convinced they would prefer “green” even if its ROI could be proven, notably Japan and Canada.
With the often initially higher cost of green technology, it might be thought unusual that a developing nation such as India would be the green leader, but this is a country experiencing a high rate of IT investment and data center growth — coupled with brown outs and other electricity problems. It makes sense that IT decision-makers there would be more sensitive to environmental challenges and increasingly supportive of growing their “green” IT solutions.
New handset displays
n There has been a lot of buzz about touch-screens on handsets but another type of display is making inroads — electronic paper technology, technically known as electrophoretic displays. The world’s first clamshell style mobile phones to use electronic paper on the outside of the handset, have become available this summer from Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications Co. of Japan (CHMC). E Ink’s electrophoretic display allows for fashionable secondary displays that do not add weight or thickness to the handset, and have little effect on battery life. The display creates a unique look and personal statement on the outside of the handset.
“We wanted features such as outdoor sunlight readability, 180-degree viewing angle, and an extremely thin, rugged, flexible display that consumed very little power,” said Satoshi Shirasawa, marketing manager for CHMC. “E Ink’s electrophoretic display technology provided all that and more, something we could not get from other display technologies.”
The Hitachi W61H phone is the first of these product releases. Japanese designer SeKiYuRiO created the Hitachi W61H to resemble a perfume bottle.
The 2.7-inch diagonal E Ink e-paper display on the external surface of the handset is secondary to the phone’s internal display. It scrolls through 96 different images in a stylish animation and is activated when a call or message is received, or when the clamshell phone is opened for use.
Vista adoption still lags
n Despite the release of Vista Service Pack 1, adoption of the operating system lags, according to a survey conducted by King Research and commissioned by KACE. The survey showed that of the 1,100 IT manager respondents polled, 60 percent have no plans to deploy Vista — almost 10 percent more than originally reported in the November 2007 survey on the same topic. In response to concerns about unwanted complexity to their IT environments, 42 percent of IT administrator respondents said they would consider deployment of alternative operating systems, such as Mac OS and Linux, in order to avoid a migration to Vista, and 92 percent said the release of Vista Service Pack 1 has not changed their plans for Vista deployment.
