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Microsoft gets its first 'environmental evangelist'

Microsoft is forging ahead internally with its Green Datacenter Initiative, with teams across the company providing support, guidance and suggestions on how Microsoft can guide customers in reducing the environmental impact of Microsoft's technologies.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft is forging ahead internally with its Green Datacenter Initiative, with teams across the company providing support, guidance and suggestions on how Microsoft can guide customers in reducing the environmental impact of Microsoft's technologies.

Microsoft Certified Architect Lewis Curtis -- who said he has been appointed Microsoft's first "environmental evangelist" -- provided an update on the company's green activities via a blog post on September 8. (That blog post has since been pulled with no explanation as to why.)

According to a copy of Curtis' pulled post:

"While this was forming, we had aprox 14 different groups provide support and guidance for the Green Datacenter Initiative (which is amazing as we didn't really have an executive sponsor).  With so many passionate volunteers, it has the sense of a populist movement working for a better world and a better Microsoft.  With time, more managers have become supportive and starting to see value from this movement from it's own employees."

(In spite of the lack of an executive champion, Microsoft does seem to have named Michael Manos to head up the company's internal Green Datacenter efforts, according to Curtis' post. Manos is the Senior Director of Datacenter Services at Microsoft and has quite a bit to do with helping to manage Microsoft's rapidly expanding network of  datacenters across the world.)

Curtis said Microsoft needs to help Windows 2008 customers implement green best practices "with virtualization, branch office design, Core systems and advanced power mgmt to reduce power consumption and environmental impact. This holds true for .net 3.5 power aware appliations, SQL Srvr, Expressions, Dyanamics and Live Services."

It sounds like Curtis' first assignment will be to "promote change in the company and with our customers with GDI," Microsoft's graphics device interface that is part of Windows.

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