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July 11, 2012 By News Staff
San Francisco CIO Jon Walton has left open the possibility that the consolidated city-county government can work something out with Apple.
As reported this week by the CIO Journal, Walton backed the city’s decision to stop buying Apple desktops and laptops after the company removed several products from the EPEAT registry. City employees technically will still be able to buy Apple products, officials said, but procurement will be very difficult.
The federal government, many school districts and universities, and some cities and counties — including San Francisco — limit their purchases to products that adhere to EPEAT, a certification system and “global registry for greener electronics.”
Apple might be withdrawing from EPEAT due to product design choices that make disassembly and recycling more difficult.
Walton tweeted a statement explaining the rationale for San Francisco’s decision. It appears San Francisco is open to conversation:
"The City of San Francisco has had a rule for a number of years that requires that laptops, computer, and monitors meet EPEAT standards. This procurement rule is similar to the standard used by other cities, states, and the Federal Government. Many manufacturers, including Apple historically, have hundreds of products listed on the EPEAT registry that are compliant with this rule. Unfortunately, Apple's decision to have its products removed from the EPEAT registry will make it difficult for city employee's to procure Apple laptop's, monitors, and PC's in the future. San Francisco has reached out to Apple and is hopeful that a solution to this challenge can be found in the future."
Some observers have asserted that San Francisco’s move against Apple is only symbolic, given the city’s IT budget. According to Walton (as reported by The Telegraph), Apple’s products account for approximately $45,000 of the city’s total $200 million IT budget.
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http://www.govtech.com/budget-finance/San-Francisco-CIO-Hopes-Apple-Will-Talk-About-EPEAT.html
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Do you think Apple really cares that much about $45K worth of sales? Do you think they really care that much about the public sector market given that it's probably a very small % of their overall market?
If San Francisco wants greener computers there is always the abacus and the slide-rule. Besides isn't time to make the transition away from desktops into energy efficient tablets anyway? Considering most city employees only use a computer for email, word processing and spreadsheets, the desktop computer is pretty much a unnecessary energy consuming dinosaur. If Walton really wants to make a difference he should ban desktops completely.
I don't know about SF city employees, but many government employees use PCs to perform the majority of their work, including research. We often have multiple windows open at a time. Thus, tablets and even laptops don't meet our needs.
The EPEAT isn't about how much energy a product uses but what you do with it when you are done with it. Apple has always had extremely hard to disassemble computers with the parts molded together, this makes it hard to seperate them for recycling or proper disposal.
Apple runs all its stores on the iPad, I can't imagine a trash collection facility or a maintenance shop requiring the need for multitasking desktops and expensive monitors. Though a few employees may need more computing power this is true, but it’s been my experience that most employees do not need a desktop computer. We just think we do. Also, most government agencies outsource computer reclamation and recycling anyway. Just leave that headache to the outsource contractors.