We last checked in with Granola back in June where I wrote about this energy saving software. Today, there was an announcement made that showed two needed features amongst the other changes. The two features that top my list are the ability to deploy via Group Policy and it now runs as a service so a person doesn’t have to be logged in for the computer to save energy. The ability to deploy software needs to be built into software from the beginning for enterprise adoption (listening Firefox and Chrome?) and Granola offers an Enterprise edition, so this is a wise move on their part.
Here’s the update from the Granola e-mail list:
For Windows users, version 3.1 adds several new features that enhance the performance and applicability of Granola in both enterprise and personal environments. Most significantly, Granola has been split into the Granola Manager service and the Granola graphical application, allowing users to save energy even when no one is logged on. Additionally, the Granola installer has been re-written from scratch to support deployment via Active Directory and related technologies. Proxy support is also now available for the enterprise architecure. All of these features make Granola more compatible with enterprise deployments, while making it more robust and effective for end-users.
Complete Change Log:
Windows:
* Split into two programs, power management service and GUI.
* Completely rewrote the installer to support Active Directory deployments.
* Service power management means you can save power when no one is logged in.
* Added proxy support for the enterprise architecture.
* Fixed a timing bug that can result in incorrect reports and
* Fixed a few small bugs based on reports from users like XP permissions issues.
* Added some requested UI features such as tab completion.Linux:
* Added granola-stats for Ubuntu 8.04 (requested).
* Added granola, granol-gui and granola-stats for Ubuntu 10.10 (requested).
Check out the Granola website for more information or the software download: http://grano.la