Power Management Tops Green IT Initiatives As Cost Saver, Yet Enterprises Slow To Address

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KACE, the leading systems management appliance company, today announced the results from new research that revealed 93 percent of IT professionals surveyed believe desktop power management has the potential to reduce overall IT costs. In fact, for IT professionals who manage computer power, desktop management has surpassed data center power management in importance. The vast majority of survey participants believe there is an opportunity to save energy and reduce costs by practicing power management. However, less than half are actively managing desktop power usage today. The top reason cited for not implementing a power management strategy is the need to keep computers running at all times for patching and system upgrades.

Power management is an important topic for many corporate IT departments that are seeking ways to save money, while reducing their impact to the environment. The research, consisting of an online survey of more than 500 worldwide participants representing a wide range of IT functions, was conducted by market research firm Dimensional Research. The goal of the survey was to gather current opinions around desktop power management strategies. The research showed two-thirds of companies surveyed have established "green" initiatives and almost all of IT executives surveyed felt that desktop power management is beneficial to a company's bottom-line, yet only 44 percent are actively practicing power management.

"The research shows that the majority of businesses see the importance of powering down computers to save money, but most are still hesitant to do so because of their need to ensure important patches and system updates are being applied," said Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst for Dimensional Research and the survey's author. "The desire is there for businesses to reduce costs and their overall carbon footprint, but actual adoption of desktop power management is still early in practice."

A summary of the key findings from the survey include:

Understanding the need for IT organizations to manage power, yet still ensure the security and currency of their systems, the award-winning KBOX family of systems management appliances by KACE allows organizations to set standby and shutdown power management policies coordinated with their configuration and patching maintenance windows. KBOX Configuration and Policy management allows administrators to control the amount of power a computer uses by enforcing power settings and scheduling shutdowns. Further, integrated Wake-on-LAN (WOL) capabilities allow administrators to automatically and safely power down machines when not in use, and in turn powers them back up for after-hours maintenance. Administrators can additionally use flexible KBOX reporting to track power policy adoption and the savings achieved."The ability for KBOX to automatically power down at night, yet still update patches and handle ongoing system and software updates, has led to incredible cost savings," said Juancho Forlanda, network supervisor for Information Services at Stockton Unified School District. "Using the power savings capabilities of KBOX also led to rebates from our local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric. KBOX easily manages our most important desktop management tasks, saves us money and allows us to be environmentally friendly."

A complimentary copy of the Dimensional Research report, titled "Desktop Power Management: A Survey of Technology Professionals," is available for review.