The Hindu : Business : Wipro's PC range goes `green'

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Friday, Jun 15, 2007
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Wipro's PC range goes `green'

Anand Parthasarathy

India's first eco-friendly desktops

— PHOTO: G. R. N. Somashekar

ADHERING TO STANDARDS: Ashutosh Vidya, Vice-President, Wipro Personal Computing Division, Wipro Infotech, displaying eco-friendly product at its launch in Bangalore on Thursday.

BANGALORE: Wipro Infotech has become the first Indian computer maker to launch eco-friendly machines that comply with the European Union standard on Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) — the information technology industry's most stringent guidelines on the use of and limits on hazardous substances like lead, mercury, cadmium and compounds of chromium.

In a national launch function here on Thursday, Wipro unveiled the first products — four desktop and three laptop PCs (all manufactured at its Puducherry plant) — where the parts list has been completely reworked to adhere to the European standard.

The company had chosen to comply with this global standard in the absence of an Indian specification for the use of such substances, Ashutosh Vaidya, Wipro Infotech's Vice President (Personal Computing) explained. The company was, however, not passing on to the customer the additional manufacturing cost of adhering to such standards, he added.

In an endorse that Wipro will value, Greenpeace Toxics Campaigner Ramapati Kumar lauded the PC-maker's initiative and exhorted the rest of the India-based industry to follow suit, even as he urged the government to establish national standards for `green' computers and other information devices.

The latest initiative by Wipro comes in a week when the world's leading IT players — Google, Intel and some 30 others — announced a coalition with the WWF to try and halve the amount of energy used by computers, within three years.

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