'Green infrastructure' solution for SMEs

A new service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may allow firms to save money while helping the environment.

ThinkGrid, an IT company, is to provide thin client devices to replace businesses' PCs, which will provide basic functionality like internet access.

The IT infrastructure will then be held at a remote data centre, which has been designed with energy efficiency in mind.

According to co-founder Rob Lovell, the service will allow SMEs the opportunity to reap benefits which larger organisations have had available for some time, reports BusinessGreen.com.

"Smaller companies operating between five to 100 PCs have a lot of IT headaches, but they often don't have an IT department and simply don't relate to terminology such as 'virtualisation' and 'thin clients'," he said.

"As thin clients have no moving parts, using them to replace PCs allows you to move from using up to 300W per machine to using 10W to 30W per machine."

The SMEs will also require less air conditioning in their offices due to the lack of heat given off by PCs, allowing further energy bill savings, he added.