Mike Mercury
07-12-2012, 10:13am
San Francisco plans to suspend purchases of Apple Inc. computers
after the company stopped participating in an environmental certification program used by governments and universities to make purchasing decisions.
San Francisco’s 50 departments and 28,000 employees will no longer be able to use city funds to buy Apple desktops, laptops or monitors because the Cupertino, California-based company dropped out of a rating system called EPEAT to track the environmental impact of computers, Jon Walton, the city’s chief information officer, said yesterday in an interview. The city’s policy doesn’t apply to iPhones and iPads, he said.
Apple’s plan to drop participation in the program may have broad consequences because many governments and universities are required to use EPEAT’s registry when making purchasing decisions. The University of California, the largest U.S. public higher-education system, is considering whether to suspend Apple computer purchases because its bylaws require computers to meet the standards, said Bill Allison, head of campus technology services at the Berkeley campus.
“When something like this happens, it’s a significant change in the landscape,” Allison said. The school needs two weeks to work with Apple and administrators in the university system to consider how to move forward, he said. “We’re reviewing the impact of this.”
San Francisco’s decision was first reported by the Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal.
‘Comprehensive Approach’
Apple defended its decision to drop out of EPEAT, which it helped create several years ago. The company said it meets strict environmental standards, including the government’s Energy Star program, that exceed EPEAT.
“Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact, and all of our products meet the strictest energy-efficiency standards backed by the U.S. government,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple. “We also lead the industry by reporting each product’s greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials.”
Allison, of the University of California, said Apple’s move may lead to an updating of the environmental standard, which is several years old. Apple told him that EPEAT is outdated and has become less effective as manufacturing standards and product design have changed, he said.
Purchasing Decisions
Design changes for Apple’s new MacBook Pro may have led the company to pull out of EPEAT, said Kyle Wiens, the co-founder of IFixit, which performs tear-down analysis for consumer- electronics products and advocates for better recycling practices. The latest MacBook’s battery is now glued to the aluminum body of the laptop, making it more difficult to disassemble and recycle, he said.
EPEAT standards make purchasing decisions easier because the school doesn’t have the budget or time to review each product on a case-by-case basis, Allison said.
“We regret that Apple will no longer be registering its products in EPEAT,” the group said on its website. “We hope that they will decide to do so again at some point in future.”
According to EPEAT’s website, the registry is used to make purchasing decisions at the states of California and Massachusetts, Ford Motor Co. (F) and Yale University.
The U.S. General Services Administration, the agency in charge of much of the federal government’s purchases, “recommends EPEAT, but at this time GSA doesn’t require EPEAT for all contracts,” said Dan Cruz, a spokesman for the agency, in an e-mailed statement.
Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, will be reviewing decisions around computer purchasing “carefully,” according to Thomas Romantic, director of Cornell Business Services. Middlebury College in Vermont also is evaluating how to proceed, said Jack Byrne, director of sustainability integration at the school.
In San Francisco, Apple’s products make up about $45,000 of the city’s total $200 million information technology budget, Walton, the city’s CIO, said.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/4431776972_b81fe1ce93.jpg
Households increasingly accessing pay-TV via PCs, smartphones, tablets and not traditional set-top boxes.
The percentage of global households using set-top boxes (STBs) to access pay-TV channels is projected to drop more than 31% by 2015 from 82% household penetration in 2011, according to new data from IHS Screen Digest. Instead, nearly 50% of households will access TV content through PCs, smartphones, tablets and other multi-screen devices.
Multi-screen is defined as a service that allows the viewing of video on multiple platforms beyond the traditional mode of televisions connected to STBs. The multi-screen device category comprises a range of products, including smartphones, media tablets, portable media devices, video game consoles, personal computers and Internet-enabled televisions.
IHS reported that by 2016, set-top boxes will relinquish their customary position as the near-exclusive video consumption device among the 43 major cable, satellite and Internet protocol television (IPTV) providers that are proceeding with multi-screen deployments.
The worldwide install base of pay-TV STBs associated with multi-screen operators will amount to 321.7 million units in 2015, up 17% from 274.5 million units in 2011. Meanwhile, multi-screen devices actively receiving pay-TV services will rise to 310.1 million units, up more than 400% from 60.1 million units in 2011.
The overall install base of STBs is actually much larger, when incorporating pay-TV providers that aren’t engaging in the deployment of multi-screen services. The multi-screen operators accounted for only about one half of the global total of 538.8 million installed STBs in 2011, and will represent only about one third of the 849 million in 2015.
“A new era is dawning in the pay-TV industry, one in which subscribers can access television services on the device of their choosing, rather than being limited to using STBs,” said Tom Morrod, senior principal analyst of TV technology for IHS. “Consumers desire greater flexibility, demanding access to entertainment on any platform, in any location and at any time. Because of this, cable, satellite and IPTV operators are shifting their focus away from the STB and toward multi-screen deployment.”
Indeed, by 2015, 11 pay-TV operators will be supporting content and subscribers on more multi-screen devices than on their own set-top boxes.
For example, Bell Canada, which has a very strong strategy for delivery of services to its mobile subscribers, will be supporting almost eight times as many phones and tablets in 2015 than STBs. Multi-screen devices will account for 89% of Bell Canada’s total consumer end-points, defined as the number of devices used by subscribers of the Canadian operator in order to access its pay-TV content.
Operators with larger STB installed bases, such as BSkyB in the United Kingdom, also are expected to perform well, tipping the scale with approximately 1.5 devices per STB installed in 2015. The strength of BSkyB’s Sky Go and NowTV strategies will make the company a majority IP-to-multi-screen device operator by that time.
In the U.S. cable market where STB deployments are most widespread, Comcast will be nudging toward having one Xfinity or Streampix device per set-top box.
http://seemslegit.com/_images/e07535d75ebf7102815ff0e8f86bd36d/3858%20-%20girl%20pose%20std.jpg
after the company stopped participating in an environmental certification program used by governments and universities to make purchasing decisions.
San Francisco’s 50 departments and 28,000 employees will no longer be able to use city funds to buy Apple desktops, laptops or monitors because the Cupertino, California-based company dropped out of a rating system called EPEAT to track the environmental impact of computers, Jon Walton, the city’s chief information officer, said yesterday in an interview. The city’s policy doesn’t apply to iPhones and iPads, he said.
Apple’s plan to drop participation in the program may have broad consequences because many governments and universities are required to use EPEAT’s registry when making purchasing decisions. The University of California, the largest U.S. public higher-education system, is considering whether to suspend Apple computer purchases because its bylaws require computers to meet the standards, said Bill Allison, head of campus technology services at the Berkeley campus.
“When something like this happens, it’s a significant change in the landscape,” Allison said. The school needs two weeks to work with Apple and administrators in the university system to consider how to move forward, he said. “We’re reviewing the impact of this.”
San Francisco’s decision was first reported by the Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal.
‘Comprehensive Approach’
Apple defended its decision to drop out of EPEAT, which it helped create several years ago. The company said it meets strict environmental standards, including the government’s Energy Star program, that exceed EPEAT.
“Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact, and all of our products meet the strictest energy-efficiency standards backed by the U.S. government,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple. “We also lead the industry by reporting each product’s greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials.”
Allison, of the University of California, said Apple’s move may lead to an updating of the environmental standard, which is several years old. Apple told him that EPEAT is outdated and has become less effective as manufacturing standards and product design have changed, he said.
Purchasing Decisions
Design changes for Apple’s new MacBook Pro may have led the company to pull out of EPEAT, said Kyle Wiens, the co-founder of IFixit, which performs tear-down analysis for consumer- electronics products and advocates for better recycling practices. The latest MacBook’s battery is now glued to the aluminum body of the laptop, making it more difficult to disassemble and recycle, he said.
EPEAT standards make purchasing decisions easier because the school doesn’t have the budget or time to review each product on a case-by-case basis, Allison said.
“We regret that Apple will no longer be registering its products in EPEAT,” the group said on its website. “We hope that they will decide to do so again at some point in future.”
According to EPEAT’s website, the registry is used to make purchasing decisions at the states of California and Massachusetts, Ford Motor Co. (F) and Yale University.
The U.S. General Services Administration, the agency in charge of much of the federal government’s purchases, “recommends EPEAT, but at this time GSA doesn’t require EPEAT for all contracts,” said Dan Cruz, a spokesman for the agency, in an e-mailed statement.
Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, will be reviewing decisions around computer purchasing “carefully,” according to Thomas Romantic, director of Cornell Business Services. Middlebury College in Vermont also is evaluating how to proceed, said Jack Byrne, director of sustainability integration at the school.
In San Francisco, Apple’s products make up about $45,000 of the city’s total $200 million information technology budget, Walton, the city’s CIO, said.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/4431776972_b81fe1ce93.jpg
Households increasingly accessing pay-TV via PCs, smartphones, tablets and not traditional set-top boxes.
The percentage of global households using set-top boxes (STBs) to access pay-TV channels is projected to drop more than 31% by 2015 from 82% household penetration in 2011, according to new data from IHS Screen Digest. Instead, nearly 50% of households will access TV content through PCs, smartphones, tablets and other multi-screen devices.
Multi-screen is defined as a service that allows the viewing of video on multiple platforms beyond the traditional mode of televisions connected to STBs. The multi-screen device category comprises a range of products, including smartphones, media tablets, portable media devices, video game consoles, personal computers and Internet-enabled televisions.
IHS reported that by 2016, set-top boxes will relinquish their customary position as the near-exclusive video consumption device among the 43 major cable, satellite and Internet protocol television (IPTV) providers that are proceeding with multi-screen deployments.
The worldwide install base of pay-TV STBs associated with multi-screen operators will amount to 321.7 million units in 2015, up 17% from 274.5 million units in 2011. Meanwhile, multi-screen devices actively receiving pay-TV services will rise to 310.1 million units, up more than 400% from 60.1 million units in 2011.
The overall install base of STBs is actually much larger, when incorporating pay-TV providers that aren’t engaging in the deployment of multi-screen services. The multi-screen operators accounted for only about one half of the global total of 538.8 million installed STBs in 2011, and will represent only about one third of the 849 million in 2015.
“A new era is dawning in the pay-TV industry, one in which subscribers can access television services on the device of their choosing, rather than being limited to using STBs,” said Tom Morrod, senior principal analyst of TV technology for IHS. “Consumers desire greater flexibility, demanding access to entertainment on any platform, in any location and at any time. Because of this, cable, satellite and IPTV operators are shifting their focus away from the STB and toward multi-screen deployment.”
Indeed, by 2015, 11 pay-TV operators will be supporting content and subscribers on more multi-screen devices than on their own set-top boxes.
For example, Bell Canada, which has a very strong strategy for delivery of services to its mobile subscribers, will be supporting almost eight times as many phones and tablets in 2015 than STBs. Multi-screen devices will account for 89% of Bell Canada’s total consumer end-points, defined as the number of devices used by subscribers of the Canadian operator in order to access its pay-TV content.
Operators with larger STB installed bases, such as BSkyB in the United Kingdom, also are expected to perform well, tipping the scale with approximately 1.5 devices per STB installed in 2015. The strength of BSkyB’s Sky Go and NowTV strategies will make the company a majority IP-to-multi-screen device operator by that time.
In the U.S. cable market where STB deployments are most widespread, Comcast will be nudging toward having one Xfinity or Streampix device per set-top box.
http://seemslegit.com/_images/e07535d75ebf7102815ff0e8f86bd36d/3858%20-%20girl%20pose%20std.jpg