What is PC Power Management?
Power management technology was developed for personal computers (PCs) and monitors
to reduce energy consumption when they are not in active use. Put simply (from the
Windows perspective), the essence PC power management is ensuring that your computer
transitions to a low power mode (monitor off / standby / hibernate / shutdown) when
kept idle for longer than a certain fixed threshold, called a timeout.
A set of sleep, hibernate and shut down timeouts is called a power plan or a power
policy.
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Wait. Doesn't Windows already
do this stuff?
It's been observed in several studies that Energy Star compliant computer systems
barely save any energy on account of a variety of reasons. These include (1) poorly
configured timeouts for power transitions like standby & hibernate, (2) rogue
applications that prevent power saving features from kicking in even when the computer's
idle or (3) the disabling of power settings (either due to company policy or because
they're perceived as a hindrance).
Moreover, with the older versions of Windows it wasn't possible (or let's say it
was extremely tedious) to centrally define a PC power policy for an organization
and ensure that all computers within the organization are in compliance with it.
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What is Enpower? How does it work?
Enpower is an intelligent, centralized power management and monitoring solution
for computer networks. It enables IT admins to optimize PC power consumption on
their networks by effectively transitioning idle machines into power saving modes
and ensuring that only the machines that are in use are actually on and drawing
power.
Enpower's server monitors all your workstations, and lets you group them into logical
collections called 'Power Groups'. You can then define 'Power Policies' for individual
workstations as well as power groups.
An Enpower agent on every workstation handles the responsibility of power management
and allows users to tweak settings so that productivity isn't affected. These agents,
once installed work almost independently.
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How much does it save?
An average desktop can save between 150 to 300KWh per year based on the screen (CRT's
consume way more than LCD's) and your usage patterns. That's 750-1800 rupees. For
a laptop, you should save around 500 rupees a year.
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I'm not convinced. The savings don't seem
so significant.
On a single machine, the leak might seem like a trickle. But the larger picture's
ominous. Idle PC's in India will waste over 10,000 crore rupees in the year 2010
alone. Businesses across the US will bleed over 2.8 billion $ this year from their
idle machines. Don't take our word for it. Microsoft, Energy Star and all the PC
manufacturers seem to think it's a huge problem.
We don't sell to individuals. We sell to large organizations who feel the pinch.
As a matter of fact, real shortly (watch this space), we'll be distributing the
home edition for free!
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But I power my PC down religiously.
That's awesome. Pat yourself on the back. Now, what if someone took over for you,
and you never had to worry about powering down ever again. You can walk away from
your desk and return hours later without having to feel guilty about it. We could
all do with some convenience, can't we?
Even in the night, you can just walk away from your computer! And we also quantify
your savings, so you can get that warm fuzzy feeling every time you look at the
reporting widget.
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Interesting. Is there any additional
utility that your application provides?
Yup. If you're in a large organization, you don't really have to bother protecting
your data against unauthorized access when you walk away. All you need to do is
right click the taskbar icon and power your PC down. When you power it on again,
you're taken to the login screen and asked for your password.
Oh, and you can turn the monitor off if you have a download that's going to take
all night. Better still, you can hibernate / shut your PC down at a fixed time if
you're on one of those 'unlimited at night' download plans.
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Hold on. What if your app powers my
PC down when I don't want it to?
"We power PC's down only when they're inactive. And we go one step further - we
even let you define what 'inactivity' means to you. So, your PC will not power down
when you're watching that late night movie or when you're in the middle of a powerpoint
slideshow. And it won't kill that critical download, since you can tell Enpower
that you're computer's NOT inactive when you're download manager's running!
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Why 'Enpower'? Bet I can
think of a nicer name!
Empowering people to power their PC's down is what we do. And we wanted to put an
'en'vironmental spin on it. And yup, we do want to leverage the support we got from
(Microsoft), so we're not renaming!
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What else do you have in the pipeline?
We have a social game around Enpower that should go live soon. We'll have you gunning
to save more than your neighbour. We have another product that's in stealth mode
now, but should see a private beta soon.
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