Is the Green IT Movement Losing Momentum?

Bad times aren’t good times for good causes so when a thought leader like Gartner jumps off the green IT bandwagon, questions arise about whether the will to make the nation’s information infrastructure friendlier to the environment is beginning to be sapped by hard times.

ZDnet blogger Larry Dignan raised the yellow flag about Gartner’s reversal on green IT after reviewing the forecasting firm’s top bang-for-buck technologies for 2011. On Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technology Areas for 2010, green IT placed fourth. This year, it didn’t make the list at all.

Gartner’s position may have more to do with its business model than with a dampening of enthusiasm for green IT. “What this means is Gartner’s revenue stream from sponsored research in this areas has dropped the topic out of the top 10,” maintains Dave Ohara in his Green (low carbon) Data Center Blog. He argues that organizations like Greenpeace will spearhead change in the industry, not Gartner with its sponsored research.

Another observer, eWeek pundit Peter Judge, believes that for the first time the pieces are coming together to make    it easier than ever for IT honchos to go green. The storage industry has finally put a measurement system in place so meaningful energy comparisons can be made among devices. Server makers are headed in the same direction. What’s more, the science of data center construction continues to evolve.

“With all that, we have to say to Gartner–you are wrong,” he writes. “Green data centers are more strategic this than they were last year. They may not be sexy, but they are really starting to happen.”