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With regular load-shedding once more a reality in South Africa, Eskom has again turned to asking both business and individuals to ease the burden on the country’s grid by reducing their electricity usage.

But while a household user can easily switch off a geyser, pool pump, or a TV that’s not being watched, it’s not as easy for business users, for whom a switched off computer means loss of productivity – and possibly income.

While companies have invested in uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), and even generators to keep things going when the lights do go off, they have also looked at reducing their overall electricity consumption through various ways.

They’ve built ‘green buildings’ that provide more natural light and ventilation, switched to energy-efficient lighting, and even built solar panels on their roofs to provide extra power. But they seem to have forgotten about one big – and power-hungry – elephant in the room: the desktop computer.

CloudGate can help businesses reduce their electricity bills – and provide South Africa’s overburdened electricity grid with some respite.

With a 1.6Ghz quad-core processor, 2GB of high-speed RAM and 8GB of solid-state storage, CloudGate runs on Google’s Android operating system and uses only 10 Watts of power.

If you’re replacing an average 300 Watt desktop, that means the power savings are almost the same as the monthly cost of the device, rendering it effectively free – or to put it in another way, the CloudGate pays for itself within 2 years.

CloudGate delivers a powerful desktop replacement at a fraction of the cost, with zero pre-configuration, and reduced support.

It is designed to work best when using the cloud, and with the locally designed Cloudware application, businesses can store and manage their data and applications from a central data server, and allow for Windows applications to be used on an Android platform.

This provides a further saving for businesses, as the office no longer needs to have its data or exchange servers – which are energy-intensive, and need even more expensive power backup solutions, for when Eskom does flip the switch.

Making the move to the cloud also means that employees can use the CloudGate to access their work – emails, applications and data – in a secure environment, from anywhere, at any time, while access to Google’s Play Store also provides them with access to their emails, social networking applications, and more.

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