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http://www.itworld.com/article/2956675/hardware/a-new-tool-for-pricing-used-it-
An electronics recycler has created an IT products database representing 9,000 manufacturers and 11 million equipment models. The products range from consumer to business equipment, such as network storage devices, routers, switches, as well as servers, PCs and office machines.
The database, called the Sage BlueBook, was launched this week in beta and will remain free to use. It will give prices based on condition, including non-working. It is but the latest option available to people and businesses trying to maximize the value of used electronics.
Houghton said the system scrapes data from a variety of wholesale and retail sources, including eBay and Amazon Trade-In. The "real magic," however, comes in cleaning the data to get valid model information that can be matched with transaction activity and product condition, he said. "The BlueBook tells you if the offer price is good or not," Houghton said.
Houghton sees a connection between sustainability and old electronics. "The real dream here is to eliminate the throw-away mentality for the used stuff. There is value in most used electronics," he said. Good pricing data, he reasoned, helps keep equipment in circulation.
"The transparency issue over the cost has always been a sore point for CIOs," Daoud said. There is "very little trust" in the secondary market for used electronics.
One of the problems with electronics is the velocity of price changes. For instance, an asset may have a certain value just up until the time that a new OS is released that changes hardware requirements. What will be difficult is tracking prices over time, Daoud said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @05:13AM
One must also consider the space it takes up. It takes up space and one must either pay rent or property taxes on that space and there is the opportunity cost that you can use that space for (ie: if you own the space you can either rent it out and make money or you can run some equipment for your business). So, in a sense, if it has no value it actually has negative value. You must also consider that cluttering up your place with unnecessary junk is a huge inconvenience because now searching for and finding more relevant stuff takes longer since you have more stuff to search through and more stuff that gets in the way of other stuff and also making your usable space smaller.