After many years of autonomy when it comes to specing and purchasing my work computer, things have started to change. There seems to be a concerted effort to move to a homogeneous (Windows) environment. Here’s how it’s being done:

1. A deal has been negotiated with Dell to “standardize” on one configuration. A condition of this agreement calls for 80% of all purchased machines to be this standard configuration.
2. Allow non-standard configurations, but limit them to the price of the standard configuration.

What this effectively means is that new Mac purchases are limited to the price that was negotiated for a bottom or middle of the line Dell.
All I keep thinking is that BYOD can’t come soon enough.