>>16
Macs are easier to make money with as an independent also for consultants Apple/Mac is the way to go; Apple Store for support, easy to use platform that, next to Ubuntu, is by far the most user friendly and out of the box complete. Apple store has constant tutorials to improve your clients understanding of the system thereby increasing your revenue. Bottom line you can ssh from the beach and control _all_ the systems you work with and the dev is all free. You write the software correctly it works across all platforms out there so you can navigate in all markets. Plus Java, java is built in from the start, java is managed very well from Apple (a little behind at times) and with JavaFX you have RIA across platforms.