During your next upgrade cycle, consider investing in energy-efficient hardware to help battle rising energy costs and consumption in your business. Finding energy-efficient systems gets easier all the time. Sun Microsystems met with the EPA last April about setting a standard metric for measuring energy efficiency in servers. Sun has already introduced low power consumption servers, and thetrend is spreading.

Dell recently announced an energy-saving initiative for its business desktops. The redesigned Dell OptiPlex 745, coupled with a flat-panel display, uses up to 70 percent less power than previous OptiPlex designs. The PowerEdge server line consumes up to 25 percent less energy than earlier models. Visit www.dell.com/energy to access an energy efficiency resource guide and to estimate your power savings using Dell products.

With Google pushing more energy-efficient computers and the

incentive plan for more efficient computer power supplies, look for more ways to save energy this year.