Scientist often need one computer for research and another for collaboration and communication. With the Hardware and software available now we can finally do everything on one computer system. The key is virtualization. This is not really a totally new idea in computing. However, now computer systems capable of virtualization are cheap enough to be bought by the average consumer-scientist. The virtualized operating system will run fast enough to actually be usable thanks to hardware level virtualization. Last but not least Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 and recent Linux distributions are well supported by a variety of packages.
I have been using windows 8.1 on a first generation surface pro tablet since the first came out. At various times I have used it primarily with Linux. It actually runs Linux beautifully. (There are even video's giving instructions on how to put OSX on your surface pro 1 and 2. Most likely OSX will also work on the third gen that just came out.)
