[newmanships]

I think more and more people are not working at the same desk everyday (people working at coffeeshops or traveling) or don't have space for a desktop/don't want the extra stuff that is required for a desktop if they are living in a small apartment

[majewsky]

Also, in companies, devices are usually swapped out after a fixed period anyway (3 years at my workplace). When you manage a lot of devices, the increased failure rates near the end of the devices' life cycle can really hurt, so it makes sense to replace devices early and sell the used devices in bulk for a few bucks, hopefully after wiping the drives. ;)

And given that you swap out the employee computers well before they break down, the shorter lifetime of notebooks doesn't matter. What matters is that your employee can take her device to a meeting room, or to a customer site.