Industries are subject to the same rules of natural selection as carbon-based life forms, evolving from rudimentary to more complex. Electronics recycling and "IT Asset Disposition" (ITAD) are no different.

When my company, Redemtech, was founded in 1998, many clients saw their dumpster as a legitimate alternative to recycling. Back then, customers commonly challenged the need to erase confidential data and sold their surplus IT by lot bid, "as-is, where-is," without a requirement for reporting or any accountability.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is no longer a viable IT asset disposition strategy. ITAD practices have progressed through the years until finally, in 2010, real standards emerged. The e-Stewards and R2 standards established the first independently audited certifications for electronics recyclers.

The e-Stewards Electronic Recycling Certification is the only standard supported by the environmental community and represents the more rigorous of the two. It is Redemtech's choice as the most likely to prevail, and therefore best for our customers. Whenever an industry adopts certified standards, it generates a kind of extinction event for vendors that are unwilling or unable to evolve—a good thing, given the e-waste electronics industry's history of polluting developing countries.

Now Gartner has published the definitive taxonomy for the ITAD Industry in its first ever "Magic Quadrant for North America Information Technology Asset Disposition." The Magic Quadrant (pictured at the bottom of this post) evaluates vendors based on "completeness of vision" and "ability to execute." Gartner considered hundreds of service providers to arrive at the 13 described in this most-read of all Gartner research documents.

Creating a Magic Quadrant represents a substantial investment on Gartner's part, and is only possible when an industry has matured sufficiently to have well-defined best practices. Further, the research topic must represent sufficient value for enterprise IT to be meaningful to Gartner subscribers. Having a Magic Quadrant means the ITAD industry has really come down from the trees.

That said, the marketplace is still teeming with thousands of under-capitalized IT asset disposition providers boasting little more than nice-looking websites and well-spoken salespeople in Brooks Brothers suits. Corporations seeking to proactively manage the environmental and privacy risks of asset disposition have found it challenging to evaluate vendor strength and capabilities, frequently exposing themselves unwittingly to the risk of an unqualified service provider.