[adav]

That depends on how much you value your own personal time setting their system up and maintaining it. An iPad might have a greater up front cost, but the time savings could make it a comparative bargain over the lifetime of the device.

[brokenmachine]

iPads are not maintenance and support free.

I would personally rather support a linux machine that I can remotely connect to, give them icons on the desktop, etc, than an iPad.