Good question!
- Foundation: It's important in building a house and it's important when designing a business network infrastructure. If you buy into a proprietary product then you buy into vendor lock-in - that can be a double-edged sword. Whereas, if you buy into Linux you buy into freedom.
- Initial cost for the server software is dramtically different - since Linux is free:
Windows Server Linux Server
Server Software Cost
$$$ $0 Server Software Cost in 3-5 years time $$$ $0 Number of clients able to connect (users/devices)
You get 5 with initial purchase. Pay per user/device after that.
Limited only by hardware (effectively unlimited)
- Linux is very stable.
- A lot more options and additional features are available with Linux at the free price-tag and THIS IS A BIGGY. Things like virtualisation out-of-the-box, databases, iSCSI (remote disk mirroring), web servers, email servers, media services (streaming, internet radio), PABX software, etc. And with numerous online software repositories the list of applications is almost endless.