IBM courts Hollywood in green crusade

IBM has found another means of touting its green credentials, this time enlisting the support of representatives from the media and entertainment industry.

At yesterday’s Hollywood Goes Green conference IBM claimed it could help media and entertainment companies to significantly reduce the environmental impact of their IT operations, bringing cost savings by the end of the decade.

The company outlined its vision to help companies that create special effects, animation and rich media entertainment to increase their computing power and performance, without needing to build new data centres.

The move is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at promoting Project Big Green, which the company claims will increase computing capacity by a factor of 10 by 2010, without resorting to energy guzzling data centres.

"IBM clients around the world are increasingly expressing concern over their growing need for energy and the associated costs, but the issue is becoming particularly acute for media and entertainment companies because they rely so heavily on high performance technologies to deliver their content," said Jim Gargan, vice president, brand management, IBM BladeCenter and System x.