June 20, 2008 - Seven global IT firms have finished in a statistical dead heat for the title of world's greenest tech brand - primarily because expectations for green IT performance vary so widely from country to country, a new survey shows.

The new GreenFactor survey of 3,500 enterprise IT decisionmakers exposes markedly different regional attitudes toward green computing. Nearly a quarter of India’s respondents (22%) say they expect to pay at least a 5% premium on green IT and would prefer it if they were convinced of positive impact on both the environment and their budgets. (The U.S. came in a distant second at 15.9%, and Italy ranked last of 11 countries at 4.8%.)

"India is a country experiencing a high rate of IT investment and datacenter growth – coupled with brownouts," explains Paul Walker, president of GCI Group, which co-authored the study along with marketing firms Strategic Oxygen and Cohn & Wolfe. "It makes sense that IT decision makers there would be more sensitive to environmental challenges and increasingly supportive of growing their green IT solutions."

(India seems to be a leader in green purchasing in general. A study out last month found that India is home to the world's greenest-minded consumers.)

By contrast, nearly one quarter (24%) of respondents in Germany believe buying green products has no real impact on the environment - generally twice that of any other country. In fact, buyers in some of the largest economies and B-to-B markets for technology are not at all convinced they would prefer green even if its ROI could be proven, notably Japan and Canada.

These regional differences suggest that universal, global green messaging is ineffective - a conclusion echoed by a Forrester Research study published in May.

"There are statistically significant differences between countries, so many of the green global campaigns being implemented by IT brands today will not be successful," says Michael Gale, CEO of Strategic Oxygen.

That said, seven global IT companies emerged as brands most associated with green technology:

1. Apple
2. HP
3. Microsoft
4. IBM
5. Intel
6. Sony
7. Dell

Among software and Internet brands, Microsoft and Google were rated greenest.

Not surprisingly, price is considered the top barrier to green IT in nine of the 11 countries.

Find more results from the GreenFactor survey here.