My first post of 2008 was a content management trend watch: number two on the list was the movement toward green IT.I received both good and bad feedback on the post, with one visitor simply dismissing the green trend as "crap."

I stand by this trend for 2008, and watching company after company turn the green movement into a viable business plan further proves the point. Sometimes the term "green" seems to elicit almost a religious reaction. Most of the time people either believe in the idea or they don't, but if we ignore the term for a minute and look at how this trend is turning into cash, much of the debate seems to taper off.

A few weeks back, I wrote about the compliance aspects of the paperless office and e-mail archiving handled by MessageGate. While it wasn't the sexiest topic, it was a strong example of the reduction of paper and efficiency gains common across enterprises that drive an entire category of content management.

I was on a call the other day with Robert Carroll, VP of Marketing for Clickability, and was interested to hear his views on how they're going green. According to Carroll, having to support the large amounts of content it serves daily has created some favorable green byproducts.

"Just the fact that we have to have the latest hardware to power our infrastructure has created some favorable green results," said Carroll. "The newer platforms are already way ahead in terms of energy efficiency, so we're green sort of by default."

And to add fossil fuel to the fire, the press release issued yesterday by Alfresco is another example of the green movement aligning with content management. It's a clean green deal with an environmental consultancy that helps large companies adhere to global environmental policy regulations. To say there's no green motivation driving ECM projects these days is just silly.

So we can call it green, we can call it efficiency, we can watch others dismiss it as a trend, but the smart companies are out there embracing it and laughing all the way to the bank.