• Silicon.com via BusinessWeek.com, Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:45 PM

According to new research from Gartner, power-hungry hardware companies and rising global fuel prices could contribute to energy costs eating up more than one-third of IT budgets within the next five years.

Inflation hasn't hit tech companies that badly, partly because oil prices have cooled somewhat. But just about everybody knows that the price of oil affects the price of just about everything else, and it's got nowhere to go but up, according to the report.

That fact, compounded with the rising global demand for greater computing capacity, means that technology companies in general will be using a lot more energy. Gartner says so-called "green IT" initiatives should now be high on the list of priorities for tech execs across the globe. Today's power consumption is just "the tip of a melting iceberg for an IT industry that is currently unsustainable."

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