Glossary
Device-as-a-Service
DaaS
Providing devices to an organisation as a subscription, not a purchase, with the provider retaining ownership and taking them back at end of term.
Under DaaS, an organisation pays a periodic fee for devices, support and lifecycle management instead of buying hardware outright. The provider, a leasing company, an IT reseller or the manufacturer, keeps ownership and takes the fleet back when the term ends.
That single fact changes the economics. Because the provider gets the equipment back, its residual value is theirs to capture, and repair moves from a cost centre to a direct driver of margin: a device returned at end of term that can be refurbished and redeployed is worth several times one sent for recycling.
It also produces an unusually favourable repair flow. Returns arrive in predictable waves at end of term, in a fleet of known models of known age, with known usage history: the opposite of the mixed, unpredictable input a consumer trade-in programme generates, and considerably easier to industrialise.