$2K is the cost of deployment, helpdesk calls, user confusion, lost proficiency, annoyance factor and other various sundry of items.
$2K IMO is a low ball, especially since many companies are going to be coming from WinXP or Earlier (many still use Win2K and Win9X).
This means about 10+ hours (not at employee pay rates, but fully realized Employee cost rates) per machine/employee, plus the re-training syndrome due to "change".
So, remember you FANBOIs (including Fan boys and Fan girls), just because its the newest version of Windows, doesn't mean its easy. Its not for 80% of the embedded workforce using the machines. Change a menu or how its presented, or change a location or add new entry that replaces another (with same functionality but different name) or a different look of the interface... and the helpdesk lights up. I've seen it happen when we change to an updated widget that displays the EXACT SAME INFO in the same dialog, but now that it uses your "system color theme" rather than our color scheme... users get confused, they don't need/want change. They do the same job day in day out.
You'll have complaining at the drinking fountain or browsing while in queue... (lost time and productivity not withstanding)
Think a bit more broadly and you'll see the whole picture.
Debian Sid running:
greg@maxime:~ [0] $ uname -a
Linux maxime 2.6.31-rc4-686-bigmem #1 SMP Sat Aug 1 08:00:47 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
greg@maxime:~ [0] $ cd
greg@maxime:/proc/sys/vm [0] $ cat mmap_min_addr
4096
How is that?
May you consume us all...
Or maybe this is the Earth fighting back taking care of the Global Warming problem.
Get it right!
If NANOG List on Merit cannot handle it... that would be a serious problem.
I don't quite think you understand what NANOG is or what Merit is.
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis