Windows power management does allow you to turn off the display, stop the hard drive, and put the processor into standby after an idle period. But its ability to define "idle" is extremely limited. Energy Saver can monitor a variety of parameters from the CPU, hard drive, network traffic, processes, services and applications. You can set exceptions and thresholds for each to prevent false positives and negatives. So your computer won't shut down during a backup, but is clever enough to go into standby once the backup is finished. Or, for example, your computer will stay awake during a PowerPoint or KeyNote presentation, even if you aren't touching the keys.

The integrated Windows power management from Microsoft is a good approach, but still leaves a lot room for technical improvements. Especially in network environments - in which some machines are dependent on others – and in complex work routines that require flexible and intelligent power management control, you will need software that exceeds the Windows standard.

Many enterprises, schools, universities and public institutions already raise awareness for their green initiatives. Many have policies that call for a reduction in carbon emissions and energy usage. Users are asked to shut down their computers before going home for the day, leaving for the weekend, during lunch hours and longer absences from their desks. According to the latest research, 90% of all users do not enable the power management functionality of their computers. Often, they have an application running that needs to finish but don't bother to wait around to shut it down.

Employees, teachers and students are often too busy, have meetings that run late, are working under deadline constraints, or need to catch a train in the evening. So night after night, weekend after weekend, thousands of computers are left running, wasting vast quantities of energy for useless operation and cooling.

Energy Saver will maximize energy efficiency and savings by automatically putting a machine into standby if an employee is in a meeting and away from the computer.

Using Windows Power Management prohibits enterprises from running updates or backup jobs during off-hours. And while this only requires a few minutes, computers are often left running during nights and weekends for this purpose. With Energy Saver, you can define computer cascades; as long as a client machine is running, a file server will be running as well. Once the client goes into standby, the server will enter standby as well. Smart!

Consider the hundreds of thousands of display PCs in retail windows and trade shows that need to run 12-14 hours a day instead of 24 hours - you'll soon get an idea how much energy is wasted needlessly, just burning money away.