The competition wasn’t between Linux and Windows, but rather Linux with some dedicated server OSes like Solaris, HP-UX and whatnot, idk which ones exactly.
And for those, it’s pretty clear. Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, AIX… They all were proprietary offerings that strove to lock in users to a specific hardware stack with very high prices.
Linux opened up the competitive field to a much broader set of business concerns, making performance per dollar much more attractive. Also the open source having a great deal of appeal for some of the academic market, a huge participant in the HPC community.
The competition wasn’t between Linux and Windows, but rather Linux with some dedicated server OSes like Solaris, HP-UX and whatnot, idk which ones exactly.
And for those, it’s pretty clear. Solaris, HP-UX, Irix, AIX… They all were proprietary offerings that strove to lock in users to a specific hardware stack with very high prices.
Linux opened up the competitive field to a much broader set of business concerns, making performance per dollar much more attractive. Also the open source having a great deal of appeal for some of the academic market, a huge participant in the HPC community.