Refurbishers Could Make Going Green Easier

Traditionally, these companies have worked directly with large enterprises, which were among the first to begin reacting to the green technology movement. (Mainly a CYA thing, not so altruistic.) But few of these companies, or the larger high-tech vendors, actually put in place viable channel programs. Moreover, the $1.5 billion technology refurbishment industry has been extremely fragmented. And small businesses were pretty much left out in the cold.

That's changing quickly this year. One of those organizations, Newmarket IT, is officially kicking off Tuesday a channel recruitment drive along with a corporate name change.

Under its program, solution providers can private-label and offer the company's IT asset retirement services as their own. The company, now known as TechTurn, has facilities in locations including a 120,000-square-foot center in Austin, Texas, and a 40,000-square-foot building in Mclean, Va. It currently handles about 5,000 electronic devices daily.

Jake Player, president of TechTurn, said what many people don't know is that about 75 percent to 85 percent of the systems less than three years old retain some redeployment value, so the company is pitching its service for VARs who are looking to create a secondary offering for their customer base. Or who are just looking to put in place some green technology practices of their own.

Solution providers can sell the service under their own name and then hand off the systems to TechTurn at end of life. Services offered by the company include a three-pass data wipe that complies with regulations covered under the HIPAA and EPA policies, refurbishment of any usable components, and the creation of a certificate verifying how the device was destroyed or refurbished. A technology solution provider could attach this service to just one unit or to a several-thousand device project at the time of sale. Incidentally, TechTurn is also the company behind the ComputerResale.com e-commerce site for refurbished equipment. (This site was also renamed but is still at the same URL for the time being.)

"We've tested this with several integrators and worked with them to develop this offering," Player said.

Some white papers about the whole reburbishment process and green technology movement are on TechTurn's web site.

Another technology refurbishment company that is beginning to make some noise about establishing a channel is Redemtech, which estimates it will process 2 million customer assets this year.

Bob Houghton, president of Redemtech, reports that many of his company's customers are looking at rationalizing their hardware assets ahead of deploying Vista. (Not a surprising comment, given that Redemtech touts its status as a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher right on its home page.)

Houghton believes that integrators will find value in Redemtech's Retrac asset tracking application, which can let them determine how many (if any) systems currently in service at their customers' sites are capable of handling Vista. Retrac is just one of a gazillion automation tools the Redemtech could possibly offer technology solution providers.

How are keeping track of what's in use (or disuse) at your customers?

E-mail your ideas to [email protected].