Assets is the "magic" object. Currently (not saying this is ever going to be forever #safeharbor), Assets takes no data storage in your Org. This is cool, you can use Assets for many things other than the storage of data about "products sold to business customers". As long as your data has a link to Accounts OR Contacts then it is suitable for use as Assets. Just rename the Object and the fields. Hint: I put an x in front of the field names that will never be used - eg xSerial Number.

Documentation

https://na1.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_assets_cheatsheet.pdf

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=assets_fields.htm&language=en_US

Issues

No History Tracking, but you CAN have Feed Tracking!
Assets has not tab by default which is silly. Try these tricks to create an Assets Tab - https://success.salesforce.com/ideaview?id=08730000000BqwbAAC or http://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/41533/how-can-i-display-assets-as-a-tab-page or http://blog.wdcigroup.net/2013/10/salesforce-asset-tab/
Like Opportunity Line Items, Campaign Members, or Contact Roles; Assets does not Allow Record Types.
You can't rename the Account field - it doesn't exist in Rename Tabs and Labels.