Microsoft's recently released Corporate Citizenship report has been met with derision in some quarters for its claim it is reducing energy use in its data centers as part of its civic duty.
In the report the software giant claims to have opened new data centers that consume 50% less energy than those built three years ago, and it pledges to further bring the PUE (power use effectiveness) ratio down in its data center designs in 2011.
The company's current PUE rating stands at 1.125, against an industry average at around currently 2.
In May, the software company won the Uptime Institute's Audacious Idea Award for its data center efficiency strategy. In June Microsoft created a new Sleep Proxy application it said can cut a PC's energy use by up to 80%.
Microsoft has set a goal to reduce carbon emissions per unit of revenue 30 percent by 2012 compared with 2007.
In 2009, Microsoft reported emissions of 1,299,356 metric tons of CO2 equivalent and pledged four main areas of improvement - data centers, travel, buildings and computer labs ÔÇô in order to meet its own 2012 goal. It currently sources a quarter of its energy from renewable sources and over 50% from hydroelectricity at its headquarters.
Microsoft's strategy was praised by one UK analyst, but the long-term sustainability of the scheme could be questionable, he claimed.
"Microsoft's approach to data centres comes down to two main approaches - a modular one and a containerised one, often mixed together," Quocrica senior researcher Clive Longbottom said.
"The modular approach will work for a limited period, but as new architectures come in, then each module will need re-engineering to adopt the new change - and this can be fiddly."
The drawback with data centers built on containers, he said, was that you are limited to a 'one in/one out' approach. But when old containers are unplugged and removed and replaced with new ones the strategy can be very effective.
"Microsoft believes that through a mix of both approaches it gives itself the best flexibility to deal with short term and long term change while managing its PUE effectively. On the surface, I have to agree," Longbottom said.
"But I do worry about the overall longer term effectiveness of the approach."
Meanwhile, MD of hosting company PEER 1 Hosting Dpominic Monkhouse praised Microsoft but called for more honesty in its claims.
"It's great, don't get me wrong," he said, "but it is not about saving the planet. These savings are not just about being green, they are ultimately about savings on the electricity bill. Microsoft has built these centres at a cost that will be balanced by the saving they will make."
It's the piety of Microsoft's green claims that rankle with Monkhouse. "They have absolutely not built the greenest data centre they could have. To do so would cost the earth and would not be worth doing. The whole idea of being a responsible company is green wash. It has always been about ROI," Monkhouse said.
Monkhouse did pay a tribute, however, to Microsoft's achievements.
"Good on them though, 1.125 PUE is a great figure to aim for," Monkhouse said.
Systems engineering director at NetApp systems engineer Jeremy Wallis praised Microsoft for banging the drum for greener data centres.
"The reality is that Microsoft and plenty of other large technology businesses have multiple data centres running well below potential utilisation," Wallis said.