Microsoft's Chief Exec says Gates's company is thinking green

Microsoft has become environment friendly?

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer says it is but a US IT services company, Softchoice, disagrees. In a survey by Softchoice of 113,000 desktops from over 400 US organisations, 50 percent of the machines wouldn't be able to meet the basic Vista requirements. This being the case, Tony Roberts, chief executive of Computer Aid International, warned that Vista could lead to a glut of unwanted PCs entering the waste stream as users are forced to upgrade their hardware.

Roberts continued that as many as 10 million PCs may be discarded in the next two years as they are replaced by Vista-compatible hardware.

Meanwhile, the UK's Green Party has also criticised Vista for requiring "more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment".

Speaking for the Green Party, Derek Wall stated that: Vista requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment... This will also further exclude the poor from the latest technology, and impose burdensome costs on small and medium businesses who will be forced to enter another expensive upgrade cycle.

As earlier stated by the British Computer Society, "PCs contain many toxic components, so if they end up in a landfill we are creating a real problem for the future. It can be really easy to pass on the old machine to be reused, and if it's beyond use, to recycle it."

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