That's a big "might," and it adds significantly to the cost. If I'm buying all brand-name Dell or HP, I expect it would be relatively easy to get a low interes

That's a big "might," and it adds significantly to the cost. If I'm buying all brand-name Dell or HP, I expect it would be relatively easy to get a low interest rate without much hassle. However, if I'm also buying different brands of network hardware and, say, rolling my own high-performance storage[1], it's another matter. Regardless, even leasing can cause "sticker shock," and, perhaps more importantly, still requires all the up-front time cost. [1] Such as SuperMicro enclosures with commodity disks, rather than all brand-name Dell, which can easily double or triple the price, even with a steep discount.