[irrational]

Well, if he works at a place like I do - my company pays for all of my hardware and software so I never take cost into consideration. My boss wouldn't approve it if I got too outrageous though ($3000 would not be considered outrageous).

[nikanj]

All factors considered, that's like the cost of one week's work. And you'll probably use it for 2-3 years, 5 days a week, so around $20 per work day.

[EA]

By that math, many companies would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year if they could save $14 per employee per day in laptop costs.

[irrational]

Heh, I work for a Fortune 150 company and almost everyone has a macbook pro (at least judging by what I see in meetings and walking around campus). I can't even imagine how much would be saved if everyone used cheap Wintel machines.