I always assumed it had to do with taxes... CapEx can't be written off in it's entirety, but rather has to be calculated as depreciation over time. OpEx however

I always assumed it had to do with taxes... CapEx can't be written off in it's entirety, but rather has to be calculated as depreciation over time. OpEx however, is a business expense can be written off completely. I'm not sure how that really benefits an organization with a time horizon that is longer than the time it takes to depreciate a server. You still get to write off the full price of a server, it just takes a few years longer (and it was probably cheaper!). But then again, I'm not in finance...