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actually in many states, it is illegal to avoid payment of sales tax on computers ordered from out of state. Of course lots of people break this law frequently, and an attempt to have mail order companies collect this required sales tax was struck down by the federal courts. Nevertheless, what you are saying at least for some states is that IBM should recognize that most people are going to break the law anyway, so there is no point in them offering educational discounts. Actualy the whole attitude is a bit arrogant in the sense that sure, you can deal fine with mail order, and so can I, but the great majority of students shopping at the NYU bookstore definitely need teh help of a knowledgable sales person to help them, and want to shop locally. I certainly think the sales tax argument is therefore bogus. I do agree that educational discount prices on hardware are usually too low to be interesting. What I see at the NYU bookstore is that Mac prices are actually higher than the street prices in NYC, and the IBM prices are a little lower. Of course one thing you have to realize is that the bookstore marks up their EDU prices. The EDU prices you get from IBM of course take this into account for direct buying). Just as IBM charges list for ordinary customers, so as not to complete with the channel, they will charge some notional "educational list" price [does not actually exist as such], so as not to compete with the educational bookstore channel. That certainly makes sense, as FAR more machines are sold at university bookstores than at the EDU price from IBM direct, so IBM certainly does not want to compete with that channel. Your complaint is really similar to complaining that the normal non-EDU prices are higher than mail-order prices, well of course they are. If you are interested in getting the best possible price on anything, it is rarely the case that you buy direct from the manufacturer, because they cannot afford to compete with the channel.