Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin

UngodlyAudrey🏳️‍⚧️@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 776 points –
Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
mercurynews.com

There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

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It's not a sensible path for a school with budget constraints (which is most schools). They would need to come up with a new MDM solution because they can't manage their computers with Google anymore. So their IT costs would increase dramatically, probably more money than they would save by keeping the old hardware alive. The simplest path forward is to just buy new Chromebooks.

I haven't (will never) had the experience of owning chromebook as a student, what does the MDM will do here? Cheating prevention?

Mobile Device Management, aka the administering of software to a fleet of devices.

Same thing it does for any instution that loans out hardware, e.g. employers:

  • monitoring

  • remote lockdown / wipe

  • remote management of installed software

  • etc.

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