Security, compliance and liability related issues -For better or for worse, we live in times that aren't safe and that is true about the digital world around as well.
any compute infrastructure we setup today has security implications that we need to be aware of to effectively deal with. And the Indian IT Act, irrespective of its intentions, is draconian in as much as it presumes guilt until proved otherwise. The owner of the computer is assumed responsible for any/all activity that originates at a computer. That said, do you know what the computers in your lab are being used for? Would you be able to vouch for that?
Private workspaces and access control - What if we could assign a private computer to every user and ensure only that user has access to it? It then becomes trivial to tie accountability for its use to the end user as well, doesn't it? This single capability precludes the need to provide shared resources that can be misused with impunity.
Infrastructure security - How many individual pieces of equipment strewn around your campus network can you reliably protect in an affordable manner? What if we could centralize all important pieces of equipment and provide controlled access to their capabilities from across your campus network?
Detailed audit reports - Is there a point to having faculty take attendance at a lab? Wouldn't it be simple enough to generate a report automatically based on activity?
Image inspection - In a world that is perfect, we'd still want to be able to locate a computer that has say Office 2007 installed, in order to be able to view a .pptx presentation someone sent us. In the real world, we might also be interested in knowing what software has been installed on a given computer, especially if it is unauthorized.
Demonstrable compliance - Wouldn't it be nice if one could prove compliance in the event of a software assets audit? Wouldn't it be nice if we could get reports on actual usage statistics as opposed to predicted requirement in order to better allocate finances?
Controlled peripherals usage - How often have you rued the day someone introduced malware into your network via an USB thumb drive? What would the capability to control/block access to these USB ports be worth to you?