Making The Most Of Your Customers' IT Assets
Since then, I've been deluged with information about green technology practices (actually, I really don't mind), including information about a company called NextPhase, a division of Converge (a provider of asset disposal, recycling and remarketing).
This one caught my eye because apparently NextPhase is a partner of PC Connection, and it is looking for ways to work with other members of the IT channel that are developing services surrounding the green technology movement, according to Chris Adam, director of IT asset management solutions for NextPhase.
NextPhase itself only has aspirations to handle IT asset recovery and disposal for enterprise accounts with more than 5,000 seats. Last month, it flipped on an online tool for tracking all the financial and compliance procedures needed for taking a piece of IT equipment out of service.
The application, which is offered as a Web portal, is aptly called Asset Manager. It can be used to schedule pickups, estimate remarketing value and disposal costs, and download compliance documentation, and such. (It can make accommodations for things like location, condition of the asset and market conditions.) NextPhase is using the portal for its own clients, Adam said, but it could open the application up to partners using its recovery services (ala PC Connection). Certainly worth a peek, if you're developing an IT recovery practice.
Incidentally, there are some useful white papers on the NextPhase site that detail more about how asset disposal and recovery dovetails with other IT security activities.