While most enterprise policy management tools focus on policies related to software configuration or security, Verdiem's Surveyor 5.5 enables PCs, and now Macs, to go green with reduced electricity consumption.

"We've seen energy savings for Mac users from 36% to 50% in the beta users," said Verdiem's CEO John Scumniotales. The release versions can save even more.

"We can save 30 to 60 percent with respect to a PC's power usage," said Scumniotales, who said that the savings in electricity bills for current customers is on average $20 to $60 per PC per year.

"The ROI [return on investment] is 4-to-6 months," he said.

Surveyor, which was previously available only for Windows, implements power management policies that enable IT administrators to centrally measure and control the energy usage of client computers on the network. Scumniotales said that this makes Surveyor an IT management solution rather than a PC power management solution.

In addition to adding Mac support, the version 5.5 update also improves integration with Windows 7's extended power management capabilities, which, according to Verdiem, enable administrators to more easily implement power policies for groups computers. Surveyor 5.5 also can also measure and report on savings across the groups.

Surveyor consists of server software on Windows servers as well as an agent on the client computer. Unlike some products that provide schedule-based controls, Surveyor provides activity-based reporting, a feature that Scumniotales said is unique. The software collects power usage data to learn when the user is usually active. It then tunes policies to this data. An IT-created policy will reset energy settings if a user changes them.

The Surveyor agent also interacts with applications to gracefully shut them down. It can interact with popular applications, such as Office, to save and shut them down. Administrators can write also custom scripts to shut down unusual or custom in-house apps. The agent knows when a laptop is running on battery power.

Another new feature for both PCs and Macs is support for the 802.1x Network Authentication Protocol, which adds the ability to remotely awaken PCs and Macs when the network configuration changes as they sleep or are shutdown. Such network configuration changes can be used by organizations that employ 802.1x network security, since such changes can protect the network from unauthorized access.

The "Wake on WAN" feature identifies proxies on a subnet, checking for battery powered computers. However, the proxies broadcasts on subnet, preventing network-wide broadcasts that could use up bandwidth.

Scumniotales said about a third of Verdiem's customer base are commercial enterprises, another third is in education, and the remain third are government agencies.

Scumniotales said the company isn't stopping with Windows and Mac support. It plans to add support for any network-connected device, including phones, security devices, and power distribution devices. Verdiem hopes to add this support in about six months.