Desktop Real Estate that is.....
A well documented fact is that multiple monitors increase productivity. Not everyone feels that way, usually the manager who thinks that it's a luxury or a "geek" perk. Jeff Atwood puts forth in his Programmer's Bill of Rights that 2 monitors is a Right of the Programmer. Trading Houses have no problem with their Traders having massive 6 monitor setups with two high end computers to make money on the stock market. and they don't spend a dime unless it is to make money. In IT multiple monitors come from our incredible ability to scavenge and improvise, which means we're using equipment that would of just been sitting or otherwise stored until it was useless.
My current work setup is four screens.
Screen #1 HP 8540 Laptop running SLED 11sp1 and Win7
Screens #2 and #3 HP 6000 Desktop Running SLED 11SP1 with XP running in a VM
Screen #4 KVM attached to a HP 5800 Desktop, a HP 6000 Desktop and a Wyse Terminal
and I use EVERY one , ALL day, EVERY day.
The laptop is used for communication, meetings, and as a "research and code on the move" screen. The biggest advantage on Screen 2 and 3 is that I use 5 virtual desktops on the SLED desktop and switch around in them all day, one virtual desktop runs email and ticketing, another is where monitoring happens, one houses the XP desktop, another is test and the last is for writing code that is tested out on Screen #4. My own dev/test environment in 36sq ft. of cube real estate. When I started doing development I was using an IBM 701C laptop with a 10" screen that was also attached to a 14" CRT. Even then I used both monitors as a way to spread out. As I've gained experience and age, my eyes have lost some sharpness and precision. Larger fonts on larger monitors helps make up for that loss of acuity and allows me to continue to be productive.
And Being Productive is What "IT" is all about .
