The case for rethinking device lifecycle management when software — not hardware — drives the upgrade cycle.
In October 2025, Microsoft officially ended support for Windows 10. No more security updates. No more bug fixes. And for thousands of schools across Australia, a very uncomfortable question: what now?
For most schools, the answer from their IT vendor was simple. Upgrade to Windows 11. Buy new devices. The problem is that most school laptops don’t meet Windows 11’s hardware requirements — particularly the TPM 2.0 chip requirement that Microsoft introduced as a non-negotiable threshold. Devices that were purchased three or four years ago, devices that work perfectly well, suddenly became a liability.
But here’s what nobody is telling schools: the laptop didn’t fail. Microsoft moved the goalposts.
The real cost of the upgrade cycle
A new laptop costs somewhere between $800 and $1,500 depending on specs and procurement arrangements. Multiply that by the number of devices in a school, and you’re looking at a capital expense that most schools — particularly those in regional or lower-income communities — simply cannot absorb.
And that’s before you consider the environmental cost. Roughly 80% of a laptop’s lifetime carbon footprint is generated during manufacturing, before it ever reaches a classroom. When we discard a working device, we don’t just lose the hardware. We write off an enormous environmental investment and immediately trigger the creation of another one.
Australia already ranks fifth globally in e-waste per capita. The end of Windows 10 is about to make that significantly worse.
Planned obsolescence in plain sight
There’s a term for what’s happening here: planned obsolescence. It’s the point at which a product is deemed no longer viable — not because it has physically worn out, but because the ecosystem around it has been deliberately engineered to leave it behind.
In the consumer market, we accept this as an irritating fact of life. In education, where budgets are tight, equity is already fragile, and devices are supposed to last, it’s a serious policy problem.
The question schools should be asking isn’t “how do we afford new devices?” It’s “why are we being forced to replace hardware that still works?”
There is another way
Windows 10 reaching end of life doesn’t mean the devices running it have reached end of life. Linux-based operating systems can run on the same hardware, often faster and more securely than Windows ever did, with no licensing costs and no arbitrary hardware requirements.
Schools that have made the transition report lower IT overhead, fewer security incidents, and devices that continue to perform for years beyond what Microsoft’s upgrade cycle would have allowed.
The most sustainable piece of technology is the one you already have. The end of Windows 10 isn’t a hardware crisis. It’s an opportunity to rethink who gets to decide when your technology is obsolete — and whether you’re going to let them.