TCO has *always* been lower for Mac OS machines since the late 90s. It’s a nasty little secret that we consultants *won’t* generally tell you about - so as to ensure that we remain employed.
I'm talking about running Windows as a hosted process on the MAC. Now you have two operating systems running on that machine, from disparate sources. The Windows OS and it's applications will still need to be patched and upgraded, and the MAC OS and it's applications will too. How well is that going to play in a corporated environment that's using an automated system for patching management? It's already a PITA to get a MAC to properly join a Windows security domain (whether is even possible at all depends on your definigion of "properly"). I can only imagine what it would be like to get it to work with SMS.
Now *that* is actually true, running two OSes does increase your support requirements. Surprisingly, it’s not a significant increase over the support requirements of Windows by itself, or so my experience tells me.
The Windows VM will join a sec domain or SMS flawlessly. Remember, for all Windows knows, it IS a PC. Right down to the hardware beyond the HAL of the VM.
Ok - please explain what you mean by a “PITA to get a MAC to properly join a Windows security domain”... I have had my little old iBook on several Windows networks with full access (just need the appropriate information). What am I missing?