First of the many things that you will have to do in setting up an online business is to find a web host. Yu must be thinking s to how you are to find a web host, the answer is that are loads of web host , each of these web hosts have different focus and they provide different service aimed at a specific segment of the market. It is important to note that the operating system of your dedicated hosting company may hinder your flexibility. As you go ahead and study the options there are certain things that you should keep in mind.  

An operating system such as Microsoft Windows NT or DOS, instructs your computer as to how to open applications and save files. In the earlier days of internet activity, most of the windows servers operated on a UNIX platform, this platform required considerable technical expertise to operate and it was an extremely powerful tool. Even today UNIX is high on popularity, but along with that you do have choice too. There is the Windows NT and other variations of UNIX such as Sun Microsystems Solaris and Berkeley?s BSD. 

Here we have for you a detailed description of all the different systems, the choice entirely depends on your budget and what you want to do with the site. 
 

Linux server is a version of the UNIX window server, it is a very versatile platform and it performs a variety of functions. The main functions that it meets are mailing, web serving, streaming, and also file serving. It is a very economical choice to, make it allows more web sites per server and thus reduces the overall cost. These Linux services are quite compatible with certain Microsoft extensions, such as MySQL and also Microsoft front page. Linux is free software and a host of free programs are available to the users of Linux server.  

There are a lot of advantages of window server hosting. There is availability of dot net technologies such as the ASP dot net and VB dot net.  

Access database are available only with a windows hosting plan, it is unavailable of Linux as it runs only on a Microsoft windows. 

In case you are using some of Microsoft's share point, then windows dedicated hosting plan is the only secure and reliable choice for you.  

Linux is very cost effective and will come very handy especially in the case of small enterprises.