The "remote-deployed" may have something to do with it. These may be part of some kind of set-and-forget devices that are not maintained by IT types. Think industrial settings.

If the UPS units were desktop grade, they are a crapshoot for quality and would probably have to be rotated out every 2-3 years and are expensive to ship due to weight. Add in the hassle of recycling the lead-acid batteries.

While many full time employees will find employer provided insurance their best option, it can have substantial drawbacks. My employer policy is reasonably priced for the employee, but a family plan is $700 /month with a $5000 deductible and $8000 out of pocket max. The provider network is also small and omits several area physician groups and hospitals. This is not uncommon for smaller companies.

The exchange plans are just as costly without the subsidy, but at least it gives options to those who are self-employed or who find the employer insurance less than optimal for their circumstances.

Note to those shopping for insurance, in many cases you can go directly to the insurer and price or buy insurance. The prices are probably the same, but at least the insurers website should work. Also, there are private health plan comparison websites that still exist and are selling 2014 ACA compliant plans.

Why the term "snowflake" in the summary? Not enough racism going around to suit Slashdot these days?

While google apps mostly works just fine and is certainly a good product, sometimes it can take awhile to convince google fix an issue when problems do occur.

On the other hand, Tuffmail usually responds very quickly to issues.

Speaking only to business users, it seems that most employers I've worked with typically have a 3-4 year notebook rotation and buy notebooks that already include 3 year (or longer) warranties. My current employer often stretches the rotation to 4-5 years when they can get away with it. Thus, many people here are on their 2nd computer in 7 years. Admittedly, if you stretch it past the 3 year mark the notebooks are often pretty beat up and the battery is shot.