Prove it. Verdiem adds sustainability dashboard to enterprise power management software
Software developer Verdiem, which has close alliances with both Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems, has extended its Surveyor power management software package with a new Sustainability Dashboard.
Brett Goodwin, vice president of marketing for Verdiem, claims that Surveyor can help reduce the energy used by an organization's PCs by up to 60 percent without messing with users' ability to use the network when they need it. (By the way, did you realize that the rough translation of Verdiem's name is "green day?" I just noticed that.) The reason the company has introduced the new dashboard to help the IT department essentially prove its cause with executives, shareholders and internal stakeholders, and customers.
Specific features included in the Sustainability Dashboard include:
- An interface for viewing the reports that is both flash- and browser-based
- Customizable charting capabilities that let you include the layout of what is displayed
- A report that offers up "Green Savings" information reported in carbon-equivalent units (for those of you who love using this reduction information when talking to the general public or your internal stakeholders)
- Chart objects that let you share bits of information with people around your organization (so, for example, you could embed certain reports on your corporate intranet)
- The ability to filter usage reports according to geography or business unit
- Support for entering specific regional energy rates
- Rapid display of requested reports in real time
Here's what it looks like:
Goodwin says the software, which has been out in the field for beta test about 60 days, is available at no additional cost to enterprise customers. Surveyor is priced from $15 to $20 per PC, depending on how many seats are being accommodated. Maintenance contracts are 15 percent of the per-PC license costs.
Verdiem figures that customers can save anywhere from $20 to $60 per computer per year, depending on how they use its software. It has also disclosed a couple of new examples of customer results.
Probably the most remarkable example comes out of Honolulu, where electricity costs an average of 30 cents per kilowatt hour vs. 10 cent per kilowatt hour in other parts of the United States. Using Verdiem on 1,700 of its 4,500 PCs has helped the city save about $30 per PC per year in power savings, which equates to roughly 30 percent of its electricity costs. Honolulu says it was able to recoup its investment in the Verdiem software within 8 months of starting to use it.