Networkers Barcelona Sparks Good Green Energy
Viva España! What a thrill it was to see the excitement generated by the EnergyWise launch in Barcelona at Networkers, our European users’ group conference. In the keynote, Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers showcased the savings you can realize with this technology during his main stage demo. And from there, the buzz never stopped. The press conference was standing-room-only, followed by a customer panel, where again we had a full house.
As I mentioned in my last blog, it’s no longer a tough choice between what’s good for the business or what’s good for the environment. This new Catalyst® Switch technology that we introduced enables businesses to measure, report, and regulate energy usage across IT and non-IT equipment. And, it has people not only excited, but thinking about the possibilities.
Throughout our time at Networkers, customers were eager to see the EnergyWise demo. They provided many ideas on how we can expand its usage. One great suggestion we heard: Use personalized profiles of guests at hotels to pre-set how they experience their rooms, based on past preferences—or even called-ahead preferences. For instance, as soon as guests insert their hotel keys to enter their rooms, settings like temperature, lighting profiles, and more can be adjusted to the individuals’ tastes. The excitement was contagious and before we knew it, we had people greeting me and my co-presenters as The Green Ladies!
Customers cared about this topic from all sectors – banking, real-estate, retail – you name it. They loved the pragmatic approach that Cisco had taken, ensuring that the technology saved money while reducing carbon footprint. Many already had green practices in-house and were looking at how they could better tie technology to what they were doing with corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. They felt EnergyWise provided that linkage of bringing their CSR groups and IT closer together.
Seeing this level of enthusiasm and engagement around such an important global issue as sustainability is truly exciting. If you were in Barcelona—or have attended any other Green IT forums—tell us about your experiences.
Also, if you’d like to experience Networkers Barcelona from a virtual perspective and listen to the keynotes, go to the virtual auditorium and create a guest account. For more information about environmental sustainability, visit our website, which I mentioned in my last post.
Posted by Marie Hattar at 11:33AM PST
Vani Mar 3, 2009
Hi Marie, Thank you so much for sharing these green technology news from Cisco. We look forward to more green initiatives from Cisco in reducing the electornic waste and power consumption from datacenters.