Remanufactured, Refurb'd, Recycled, Oh My!

TechSoup has been a long-time advocate for refurbished PCs. They're low-cost, they work well for most purposes, and there's a brilliant environmental case for electronics reuse. We offer a whole host of them to nonprofits and libraries through the Refurbished Computer Initiative (to which we just added 16 new products!) and have found it to be a really successful offering for our users.

One major area of controversy about reburbished computers is the question on whether or not the used PC market can last given the diminishing prices of new equipment. Kevin Lo wrote about new, lower-cost netbooks a while back on this blog, posing the question of whether they're ready for the spotlight in nonprofits or not. I think the jury is still out, particularly since many can't run enterprise-class programs and networks, but they may be a good solution for smaller nonprofits.

Jim Lynch, regular blogger and our director of computer recycling and reuse decided to see what research is out there on the subject of whether or not the used computer market is going away any time soon, and has come up with some interesting results in his new article, Is the Used Computer Market Going Away?

One of his findings is that there is actually some pretty current research from Gartner Group, Arizona State University, and other neutral sources on the subject. He's combed through that research and has given his take on it in the article. Another finding is that price pressures on used IT equipment are very real and are most apparent in the areas of netbooks and smartphones. Finally, the research Jim found indicates that despite the diminishing prices of new equipment, demand in the world for low-cost used IT equipment is robust and show no signs of giving up the ghost.

This article is the starting place for a great debate on this. Check out Jim's article and then weigh in with your thoughts on the subject in the TechSoup Hardware Forum.