Asia – Trends, Product news
The Iphone pointed out the direction and the rest of the industry is eager to follow. The touchscreens are coming! It’s not that new of course. Touchscreens have been around for some time in ATMs and similar applications. But now with the launch of Windows 7 the road is paved. Many of the major brands have already launched notebooks with touchscreens. I just can’t help but wonder what the glossy screen will look like after a few hours…
A dear friend of my wife’s – her Asus notebook PC- is ill. It’s only three years old and the battery is dead, the RAM is too small and she would need a bigger hard drive to fit all her photos. The symptoms don’t sound too serious but listen to this. Asus does not sell the battery type for this relic any longer, the RAM type can not be expanded (at least not by Asus) and the only hard drive that can fit is only 80GB (20GB larger than the present one). This PC is three years old and already facing its death! The only economically sound option, from the user’s perspective, is to buy a new one and add some e-waste to the world.
We hear it all the time from industry. “We have become a green IT company” or “We are the greenest IT company”. Sounds great, but for how long will green be the fashion colour of the industry? Will “going green” be so common that it will lose its value in the market? Well in a way that might be the best thing that could happen, then we could scrap all eco-labels and the consumer could just lean back and buy IT products with a clear conscience…
No, it won’t happen. What we think of as green today might not be green enough tomorrow. Consumers must remain alert and continue to demand greener products to maintain the momentum. But it’s difficult to compare and understand how relevant the claims for going green from the industry are. That’s were the third party label comes in. We’ll find the green products for you. We’re hooked on green and we’ll make sure it keeps getting greener.
Sitting in a taxi on my way from Pudong Airport to downtown Shanghai I thought about my colleague Helena Nordin’s question if China is taking the lead in Green IT. “Fat chance” would have been my spontaneous answer rushing through the dusty polluted air in the run down old VW cab. The taxi driver was (as is typical in China) driving with the pedal to the metal and I’m sitting in the back with no safety belt, (for the simple reason that there is no safety belt) wishing this is not my last moment in life. Suddenly to my right, the magnetic high speed MAGLEV train passes me at a speed of 400 km/h.
“Don’t under estimate China” is a reoccurring thought in mind when listening to the speakers at the International Green Product Business Forum in Shanghai arranged by Ecovane during May 7-8. Europe might be leading the way for the time being but China is very convincing that they have the ability to take the lead. When the Chinese government decides on a direction, things move fast. The obvious proof of that is the unbelievably huge economic transformation China has gone through during the past decades. For obvious reasons there simply is not much room for political debate that can delay the development. Furthermore it seems that the younger generation of Chinese has a great concern for the environment and if there is anything the China government wants to avoid, it’s widespread social unrest. So the government is under pressure not only from the west but also at the domestic grass roots level.
This conference was not aimed exclusively at Green IT but rather industry going green as a whole. Many Chinese companies are making serious efforts to reduce C02 emissions, save energy and minimize environmental impact. However there is a lot left to do and as we all know it’s a global problem that we all need to do something about. I get the impression that my talk about the necessity of third party certification of Green IT was appreciated, judging by the lively discussion following the session.
Helena, to try to answer your question… I’m not sure that China is leading the way right now but before we know it the China Green IT equivalent to the high speed train might pass Europe faster than we expect. The discussion about going green is very much alive in China.
