A question for the eve of Earth Day: Has "green" technology been overhyped?

Scientists throughout the world who study global warming have concluded that drastic changes in human energy-consumption are necessary to avert a crisis of biblical proportions. Energy use in IT, like all other technology-intensive industries, thus has been put under a microscope. Computer hardware and software vendors, sensing a financial bonanza and opportunity to appear virtuous, have flooded the market with so-called green products.

It's enough to make some IT managers dismiss green technology altogether, but even those who are concerned about the environment and their own energy costs have a tough time separating product hype from reality. "There is a lot of hype, and it's hard to discern the difference between things that have been 'green-washed' and things that are really green IT," says Forrester analyst James Staten. Enterprise architect Samuel Ramos of the Oregon Department of Transportation says he thinks vendors like to "shine up" old products and sell them with a green tag. "It is deceiving," he says.

A vendor might be tempted to take an old product out of the closet, dust it off and claim it's the new green tool for the data center, Staten acknowledges. He thinks few vendors are guilty of going that far, however. Instead, he says, they develop one green product and call their entire portfolios green, even if the rest of the product line is inefficient.

IT vendors might be taking a cue from car companies that boast about selling one or two eco-friendly cars while selling millions of gas-guzzling SUVs. Dell, for example, has lots of ads talking about the greenness of their servers and PCs, Staten notes. While Dell's blade servers are very efficient, on the whole the company's "servers are not a whole lot different than other people's," he says. (Compare server products.)

It's not just Dell. Vendors, such as IBM and HP, are pushing green data-center service engagements that tend to push customers to standardizing on either IBM or HP equipment, rather than picking the best from multiple vendors, Staten says. Vendors say, "if you want to go green, you have to go with all my products," he says. "I wouldn't point fingers at one. I think everybody's guilty of this." Rather than looking to individual vendors, IT pros should turn to industry organizations like The Green Grid for less-biased information, he adds.