Vendors are scrambling to meet the July 1 deadline set by a European Union law that bars the import of several electronic components containing lead, mercury, cadmium and other substances.
The European Commission (EC) directive on the restriction of hazardous substances, or RoHS, and similar statutes in other countries — including one due to take effect in China next year — will affect IT operations and technology vendors worldwide, analysts said.
No such restriction is currently planned in the U.S. However, U.S. users will end up buying compliant products from large manufacturers that don’t want to run two assembly lines, one spewing out electronic components with lead and the other lead-free.
In addition, analysts said technology vendors may accelerate product end-of-life announcements as they develop new versions containing RoHS-compliant parts.
Little Effect on Some
Robert Rosen, CIO of the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., said he expects that the European law will have little effect on his IT operations.
Rosen, who is also president of the Share IBM user group, said his organization is using Dell PCs that are already RoHS-compliant and have caused no problems for users. On the whole, Rosen said he supports the EC effort. “From an environmental standpoint, it’s a no-brainer,” he said.
Similarly, Bill Morgan, CIO at Philadelphia Stock Exchange Inc., said RoHS compliance is “more of a problem for the computer manufacturer than for the end user like us.”
The stock exchange is a heavy user of servers from Sun Microsystems Inc. Because Sun sells a wide variety of products, “we will have choices even if some older, noncompliant products are discontinued by Sun,” Morgan said.
Industry watchers nonetheless warned that IT operations shouldn’t ignore the emerging laws. “If you are a large multi-national, you have to watch those end-of-life announcements,” said Debbie Cote, a principal at PRTM Management Consultants LLC in Waltham, Mass.
For instance, fault-tolerant computer maker Stratus Computer Systems, which does about one-third of its business in Europe, is moving up the announcement of an end-of-life timetable for its ft6600 system. Stratus had planned to announce a schedule by the end of this year, but it’s moving that up to an as yet undisclosed date because of the European directive, said Denny Lane, marketing director at Stratus in Maynard, Mass.
Dan Shea, chief technology officer at Celestica Inc., an electronics manufacturer in Toronto, said vendors also face uncertainty as they switch from lead-based alloy solder that doesn’t comply with the EC law to RoHS-compliant silver, tin and copper alloy, which is becoming more widely used. Although the new alloy has been tested extensively and so far has performed as well as or better than lead-based solder, “we have very little field data on the solder formulation that we are using,” Shea said.
Industry concerns about lead solder substitutes prompted the EU to allow a temporary exemption for high-end IT equipment, if vendors request it. Nevertheless, Shea still suggests that IT operations switch to the new technology as soon as possible to ensure long-term support for their hardware.
Sun, Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM declined to provide details of their plans to comply with the EC law, though all said they will meet its requirements.
“Whether that’s true or not, we will just have to wait and see come the [deadline],” said Chris Ingle, an analyst in IDC’s London operation. Ingle did note that European companies are starting to require RoHS compliance in requests for proposals.
