Strategy: PC OEMs confirm spending strength alongside a weaker unit outlook. Distinct 2027 ITAD actions for each OEM.

Dell, HP, and Lenovo are reporting stronger technology spending while forecasting weaker PC unit shipments. That split matters for ITAD: OEM revenue tracks dollars, while operating capacity is consumed by physical units and processing work.

Corporate Strategy: Blancco Bets on the Drive, Not the Device, as It Chases a Recover-First IT Market

Blancco is rebuilding its business around the ‘drive’, not the device, betting that surging AI infrastructure and component scarcity are pushing ITAD from “destruct-first” to “recover-first.” The company’s new strategy centers on data-bearing drives, data center decommissioning, and mobile, positioning certified erasure and diagnostics as the backbone of a market where assets move fluidly between enterprises, processors, and secondary channels.

M&A: Telamon acquires 21-year-old ITAD consultancy Retire-IT, retaining founder Kyle Marks

Telamon Corporation has acquired Retire-IT, with founder Kyle Marks staying on as VP of ITAD services under Telamon’s enterprise services division. The deal follows Telamon’s 2025 hire of Mark Vander Kooy, a former ITAD executive whose earlier company was acquired into what became CloudBlue — a sequence that reads as a company using an experienced operator to identify a target before buying one.

What makes this deal notable is that Retire-IT doesn’t process equipment; it’s a managed-service and tracking layer that oversees roughly three dozen certified processors on clients’ behalf, a model Marks calls “defensible IT disposition.” Marks argues the acquisition points to a broader shift in enterprise ITAD, away from processors vouching for their own compliance and toward separating execution from independent oversight, though whether that’s an industry-wide trend or one operator’s thesis remains to be seen. Full analysis, including Telamon’s revenue and customer figures, sourcing details, and the two open questions likely to matter most to clients of both firms, available to Compliance Standards subscribers.