Being in Academia myself, I know that SPSS and Endnote are OSX native. You can also X11/ssh over to your trusty campus Unix clusters and run them from there. Replace Access with Filemaker Pro 7 or (still in X11 land) MySQL immediately. Filemaker is one of those apps that, once you start using it, you say - shit, this is the way databases "should" work. (Big Note - this is not a universal statement. If you are doing enterprise db's, stick with DB2 or Oracle - but you are replacing Access ferchrissakes :-)

On to Virtual PC. One, it is S-L-O-W. Having said that, it works reasonably well even on my (now) low end Ti Powerbook that I can Remote Terminal into my servers and administor them. I can also use it to do most testing of Windows apps. Now, more demanding apps... SPSS - Come on! Not in emulation. You haven't got that much time :-) Two, VPC is now a Microsoft product. Enough said?

Save the dough from not buying VPC and put it toward a cheap assed Windows box.

Powerbook lines are roughly comparable at the moment, so the iBook that you buy will better than my Ti, although I have absolutely no complaints having used it as my primary machine (yes- desktop replacement) for about 3 years. No service calls - no problems. It's survived a couple of drops as well.

Just to add a little to the mix, have you checked out the 17 inch Powerbook? Or to really add a lot to the mix, have you checked out the G5's?