In March '09, former Intel executive Pat Gelsinger predicted that Nehalem-based Xeon 5500 servers would become "cash machines" for the IT industry, due to unprecedented power-efficient performance gains that can deliver a very short ROI for IT. Pat's description of the Xeon 5500 was validated during a briefing with Intel CIO Diane Bryant in San Francisco on October 6th, as reported in TG Daily. She discussed the ROI achieved and the impact that a proactive serve refresh strategy has had on Intel’s bottom line, as reported in PC World. Some of her key points: · Intel is expecting up to $250M savings over 8 years, saved $45M in 2008 alone. · Despite these results, economy forced Intel to re-evaluate capital spending in 2009. Found that delaying server refresh would cost us $19M more than continuing. So we continued. · Getting an average of 10:1 server consolidation with Xeon 5500 in design computing environment and 20:1 virtualization server refresh ratios in Office/Enterprise. Did you know that Server Refresh is also the #1 driver of Intel’s Carbon Footprint reduction as well, with an initiative to reduce Carbon footprint by 5% per year. We are projected to reduce by approximately 4K metric tons (2009) and this server refresh strategy is forecasted to be #1 project to help IT reduce Carbon. Staying on the green IT theme, the newest ally for IT to help drive carbon-reduction and energy cost savings is the energy utilities. A prime example of this is the Energy Trust of Oregon, who offers cash incentives to motivate Oregon businesses to make energy saving investments. Intel gained access to a $250K incentive from them as a result of energy savings gained by replacing older servers with newer, more energy-efficient servers in our data centers. If you are replacing older servers with modern energy-efficient Xeon 5500 based servers and you haven’t had this conversation with your utility yet – please do so. You may be eligible for utility incentives for energy savings that can lower your operating costs and reduce the impact of your business on the environment. To estimate the energy savings associated with server refresh, go to www.intel.com/go/xeonestimator. You’re going to hear more about these “cash machines” in the very near future…stay tuned! Bryce