While I agree that for those numbers, 5% to 10% savings isn't worth the effort, this isn't a good reason to dismiss saving by reducing data center power. Nissan recently starting rolling out virtualization solutions for some of their datacenters, resulting in 34% energy savings. For the kind of numbers you list, that would end up being over $100k of savings a year.
It proves exactly my point: That focusing on power usage is backwards. You should worry about other stuff, like using less servers.
The guy that worries about using less servers can consolidate 159 servers to 28. He saves $5 million dollars and $10k/mo. The guy that worries about power usage itself just buys 159 slightly less power hungry servers. He saves $2k/mo.
Ah, now I understand the distinction you are making. And I agree; get fewer servers, not the same number of slightly more efficient ones, and then you can talk about saving money on power.
