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05
Hot on the heels of a report from salesforce.
com suggesting that its computing model
produces 95% less carbon than on-premises
equipment comes a new study from the
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) showing that
by 2020 cloud computing could help large US
companies realise annual energy savings of
$12.3 billion and annual reductions in CO2
emissions of 85.7 million metric tons.
Produced by Verdantix and sponsored by
AT&T,
Cloud Computing: The IT Solution for the
21st Century
found that large companies plan to
accelerate the adoption of cloud computing from
10% to 69% of their information technology spend
by 2020.
According to the report, companies that do
adopt cloud computing can look forward to
reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions;
cost savings of 40-50%; lower capital expenditure
on IT resources; greater fexibility; improved
operational effciency; and faster times to market.
For Paul Stemmler of Citigroup, the last beneft
is the most important. “Carbon reduction is one
driver, but not the primary driver. The primary
driver is time to market. Developers used to take 45
days to get new servers, but in the internal cloud
infrastructure that we operate in our own private
network, it takes just a couple of minutes,” he said.
The study also analysed the business impact
of transferring an essential business application,
human resources, to the cloud and found that
such an investment could give a payback in under
one year.
The full report can be downloaded from
www.cdproject.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/Pages/
Cloud-Computing.aspx.
3M is warning organisations not to
neglect the risk of ‘visual data breaches’
as a new study shows that mobile
workers routinely display sensitive data
on-screen in public places. The
Visual
Data Breach Risk Assessment Study
by
People Security for 3M found that in
the last 12 months 67% of employees
have exposed sensitive data outside the
workplace in some cases including credit
card and social security numbers; and
that 57% had at times stopped working
due to privacy concerns. Even so, 70% of
companies have no policies or measures
in place to protect sensitive information
from computer screen snooping.
www.3MPrivacyFilters.com/whitepapers
July 31 marked the 50th anniversary of the IBM
Selectric typewriter, now commemorated on a
U.S. postage stamp as an icon of design.
An instant sensation when it was launched
in 1961 and an offce favourite until the brand
was retired in 1986, the IBM Selectric featured a
revolutionary golf ball head that moved across the
page, making it the frst typewriter to eliminate
carriage return for a much smaller footprint on
offce desks.
The design allowed typists to be much more
productive – an expert could type at 90 words
per minute versus 50 on a traditional electric
typewriter – and offered greater fexibility thanks
to interchangeable golf balls featuring different
fonts, italics, scientifc notations and languages.
Designed by Eliot Noyes, IBM’s consulting
director of corporate design, the IBM Selectric was
a major undertaking for IBM, taking seven years to
develop and requiring 2,800 parts. However, the
effort was worth it.
As well as transforming offce productivity, the
Selectric provided a bridge to the word processing
and computing age and paved the way for
keyboards, not buttons or levers, to emerge as the
primary way for people to interact with computers.
In 1964, IBM added magnetic tape for storing
characters, making the Selectric the frst (albeit
analogue) word processing device. It also formed
the basis for early computer terminals – a modifed
Selectric could be plugged into IBM’s System/360
computer, enabling engineers to interact with their
computers in new ways.
Cloud computing adoption to
bring big energy savings
No snooping
The IBM Selectric typewriter
The IBM Selectric is featured in the new
“Pioneers of American Industrial Design”
stamp series from the U.S. Postal Service,
honouring 12 industrial designers who
helped shape everyday American life in
the 20th century.
Photo: copyright, 2010,
United States Postal Service.
By 2020, cloud computing will enable large US
businesses to save the equivalent of 200 million
barrels of oil in annual energy consumption
agenda
Responding to the changing needs of
mobile workers, 3M has developed
removable privacy screens for tablet
computers that narrow the viewing angle
so that only those directly in front of the
screen can see what’s on it
Business Info Milestones