Reaching Out to Microsoft Partners in Australia : Environment and Sustainability

Celebrating Earth Day – Technet Mag goes Green

nickmayhew — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:27:00 GMT

As reported by our own Jeff Alexander:

“To celebrate Earth Day 2009 the TechNet team has done a special Green issue of TechNet Magazine. This edition is only available online which makes sense giving it’s all about Green IT. The whole issue is dedicated to green IT and sustainable computing. Check out the highlights below. “ More on Jeff’s post…

Voices for Innovation reminder

nickmayhew — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:01:02 GMT

I really encourage Microsoft partners in Australia to sign up as members of the Voices for Innovation (VfI) community. It’s free, takes a few seconds yet can connect you with a global group of like-minded professionals, often within the Microsoft partner base. Locally our citizenship & partner teams have begun connecting VfI with the wider stakeholders in the local IT economy including government officials and the community will the opportunity to provide direct feedback into various policy making bodies as the initiative evolves.

From a recent communication we sent out, here is a more detailed description:

“Voices for Innovation (VFI) is a global community of technology professionals, business leaders, and academics dedicated to advancing business opportunities and to supporting public policies that promote choice and an environment that encourages business success and growth within the technology industry. VFI works to educate leaders and elected officials about new technologies’ positive impact on global economies—and advocates for policy change where necessary.

Education, healthcare, innovation, the environment, the digital economy are all key policy issues at the heart of the political agenda for governments - local, state and federal. This means that the Australian technology industry will be affected by decisions made by government in areas such a procurement, privacy, technology standards, infrastructure, interoperability, intellectual property and accessibility to name a few. Given their role as both policy maker and the largest purchasers of ICT in the country, it is essential for government to remain informed and advised on the progress of technology and its contribution to business development, job creation, education, and government services.

Microsoft Australia regularly engages with governments, academics, thought leaders and regulators on policy development and would welcome your input. We want to have a complete picture of how regulation and legislation will affect our industry, but importantly how the technology industry can assist government in promoting choice, innovation and economic development.

Voices for Innovation (VFI) is one way for you to get engaged, keep informed and to connect with other members of the industry on issues of shared interest. With the support of Microsoft, VFI members educate thought leaders and elected officials about new technologies and the positive impact they have on global economies and jobs. By participating in VFI, members raise the profile of their company, learn from tech leaders and help win policies that are beneficial for our industry. Our members include Microsoft Partners, customers, software developers, consumers, vendors, suppliers, shareholders, user groups, academics and others.

New Local Environment site goes live

nickmayhew — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:57:15 GMT

We’re excited to continue building momentum on our environment and sustainability (E&S) strategy and communications by launching a localised version of the worldwide E&S site:

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/environment/

Reducing Microsoft’s carbon footprint

nickmayhew — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:54:30 GMT

Our worldwide Chief Environmental Officer has just posted an important blog entry (following an internal communication to all staff via email from Steve Ballmer) on our focus on carbon reduction. The headline: “Today, Steve announced to all employees that Microsoft has set a goal to reduce its carbon emissions per unit of revenue by at least 30% compared with 2007 levels by 2012.”

Read the full article here.

Refreshed Environment Site

nickmayhew — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:05:29 GMT

The US team at Microsoft has just refreshed the Environment site. Check it out : www.microsoft.com/environment and watch out for a local version very soon !

The site includes a new Green IT section which shows how we are marketing the power of the MS platform to customers to help them meet their environmental goals whilst saving money. MS partners can easily leverage that to tell their own story.

Announcing the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard for Dynamics AX

nickmayhew — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:43:00 GMT

See the Software Enabled Earth blog for more info:

New Green IT Website

nickmayhew — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:16:40 GMT

This has just gone live – the corporate/worldwide site for our Green IT story.

http://www.microsoft.com/environment/greenit/

The site includes 2 sustainability calculators – desktop and servers.

New local corporate affairs website

nickmayhew — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:59:03 GMT

Go find out more about our local corporate affairs activities on our new site, including the awesome On My Way initiative you've seen me talk about before.

https://www.microsoft.com/australia/about/default.mspx

Sustainable IT - by Microsoft IT

nickmayhew — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:59:27 GMT

Description (note: MSIT=Microsoft Internal IT)

MSIT shares its approach to Environmental Sustainability. This presentation will walk through how MSIT has organized for Environmental Sustainability and share MSIT current work in place to reduce its environmental impact.
The presentation will cover the following areas:
• MSIT approach and organization to environmental sustainability
• MSIT overall environmental sustainability goals
• MSIT current commitments in the environmental sustainability space. MSIT has identified key initiatives that it is committed to focusing on this year. The initiatives include: lab consolidation, virtualization, client power settings, collaboration services, MSIT data center efficiencies, and many more.

The timing is not good for Australian partners to attend live (8am Pacific time is 3am Sydney time for example) but you'll be able to see it on demand soon afterwards. Register at:

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=261066

New Local TechNet Site for Environmental and Sustainability Resources

nickmayhew — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:27:43 GMT

We've just launched this new site - it's a gateway to the main links and resources you need to understand how Microsoft technology (and of course partner solutions based on it !) can help customers improve their environmental footprint. We've be continuing to improve and develop this site over the coming weeks so please let me know what you think. In the top section is some high level talking points on how we think of the power of IT in this context.

http://www.microsoft.com.au/technet/environment

"Are you an IT professional or a software developer looking to enhance your eco-friendly resources?
Discover how Microsoft and its partners use innovative technologies and responsible business practices to address environmental challenges worldwide

Creating technology solutions. Microsoft believes that technology is foundational to solving today’s environmental challenges and enabling long term sustainability. We are working with partners, customers, governments and organisations to find new ways to:

Reduce Energy Consumed by Technology

Windows Vista is our most energy-efficient client operating system to date, with significant changes to power management – all working to significantly reduce energy consumption.
Tests for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 reveal power savings of up to 10 percent over Windows Server 2003 at comparable levels of throughput.

Rethink Business Practices

Reduce the number of physical machines without sacrificing performance using the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V feature.

Microsoft’s System Center software helps IT professionals proactively manage the energy consumption and environmental footprint of their physical and virtual IT environments. With its seamless integration to Microsoft’s operating systems, System Center optimizes resources and reduces energy consumption through:

Progressive Group Policy management
Virtualization for server consolidation
Centralized reporting and control

Microsoft provides a free Assessment and Planning Toolkit Solution Accelerator that will auto-generate desktop and server optimization strategies for:

Upgrading existing machines to Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Performance recommendations and modelling for server consolidation using Hyper-V
Intelligent Placement of virtualized machines to balance workloads most effectively

Research New Solutions

Microsoft Virtual Earth platform allows customers insight into global trends and patterns through online maps and data. Geomatics, Sungevity, Infusion, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and others have developed innovative environmental solutions on the Virtual Earth Platform.

This site is intended to help IT Professionals get easy access to the numerous resources available to help you innovate inside your IT infrastructure in terms of environmental impact."

Introducing Hyper-green.com

nickmayhew — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:00:24 GMT

From the Software enabled Earth blog:

Today, Microsoft announced the new Hyper-Green site which shows how virtualization technologies can help you reduce your carbon footprint, reduce energy, reduce cooling, and of course save some money as well.

The site includes of a set of tools available designed to help you and your organization quantify the environmental and cost savings benefits available through some of Microsoft's virtualization technologies. At the site you will be able to build a simple environmental savings report for server virtualization projects you are considering and access a set of tools, including a deeper scenario-based ROI analysis and infrastructure assessment that can help you get started on realizing that value.

Check it out now: http://www.hyper-green.com/

More....

Bianca helps you 'get the facts on green it'

nickmayhew — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:55:10 GMT

Great post from Bianca on some fast facts on Microsoft and green it:

http://blogs.technet.com/lmeg/archive/2008/11/06/get-the-facts-on-green-it.aspx

Inside The MS Quincy Data Center

nickmayhew — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:22:53 GMT

Saw this today - a fascinating peak with the BBC into the Microsoft Quincy data center in Washington - expect Windows Azure an MS Online to be running in those racks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7694471.stm

It's fully powered by hydro-electricity and built to be highly efficient in terms of energy usage and therefore showing leadership in environmental impact. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc546560.aspx (there is another video linked to in that article). And of course there is plenty more info on the 'green' side of data center design up on our Environmental and Sustainability website e.g. Green Grid

VE on a BIG screen

nickmayhew — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:55:30 GMT

Really amazing to see this - a research project from a Canadian University with large screen projection of Virtual Earth.

Multi-Channel Virtual Earth Viewer

Local Microsoft Internal Case Study - using our UC technology

nickmayhew — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:45:45 GMT

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd126738.aspx

"Microsoft Australia Uses RoundTable to Improve Productivity, Save Costs, and Reduce Carbon Footprint"