CAVEAT: All of this is my opinion and may not reflect the corporate opinion of SAP
Actually, most ERP deployments on ASE are Windows, Linux and AIX - with Windows and Linux dominating. While ASE was developed on Unix (Solaris), currently a lot of the development is on Linux. However, I would say that 40-50% of the SAP ERP systems have been deployed on Windows - many running in VM's. I would say the decision between Windows and Linux should be one based on how comfortable your SA's are at handling Linux vs. Windows. Linux has a lot of silly things as it is still maturing (e.g. the IO subsystem is a nightmare....they are still trying to figure out IO scheduling and true concurrent IO) but it has come a lllooooonggg ways. Many customers have opted as a result to use Veritas Storage Foundation (VxFS) on Linux as a cure for the IO ills - but that also plays against the cost savings card as VSF isn't cheap. Windows reliability - assuming we are talking Windows Server and run like it should be vs. the patch-a-day desktop variant - is (in my mind and only in my opinion) equally reliable and is some ways more friendly to the end-user - BUT (and this is a key consideration) - it *really* only likes one version of any application to be installed at a time. I point this out because if you decided to do a server consolidation (e.g. dev, test, QA) and run multiple instances of ASE on the same host....wellllllll....with Windows...don't.
Linux is a little more friendly in that fashion and since it is a primary development platform, new features will tend to show up there first. Not sure how that impacts SAP ERP as it is likely that a feature will only be certified for SAP ERP when it is available across multiple platforms. We also run all of our performance tests on Linux (some of this is due to HW independence as running tests on other HW often times is not doable due to political conflicts with the HW vendor also being a DBMS vendor and not allowing such tests to be done). We also support ASE Cluster Edition on Linux (but not on Windows) - although not certified for SAP applications (yet!....ohhh....soooo many things and so little time and so few people), it may be applicable if looking at moving non-SAP systems to ASE as part of a broader migration strategy. In addition, with non-SAP applications on ASE, you have the option of using raw partitions and bypassing the still-seeking-for-a-real-IO-solution-dial-a-file-system file system issues of Linux. If you go Linux - do yourselves a favor and use xfs or perhaps btrfs and learn how to tune the filesystem (and get the sysadmins to work with you on that vs. against you....the Linux ext3/ext4 file system journal is simply atrocious).
Overall, I would rate the platforms equally Windows vs. Linux ...and AIX is really good choice for someone looking for non-x86/64 processors and more bullet-proof reliability - you just need to determine which OS is best for your company due to system admin. If both the sysadmins and the DBA's are comfortable working in a more Unix-like environment, then Linux might be the way to go assuming you have other non-SAP applications as it gives you broader support for features/functions. On the flip side, one of the easiest SAP migrations I was involved with was to a Windows system and we didn't have to tinker around with OS hardware tuning nearly as much as we would have for Linux.
From a performance standpoint, I would say the *exact* same HW running Linux or Windows should be nearly equivalent in performance. However, if willing to tune the Linux filesystem and Linux kernel settings, it might have the edge. But I would add an extra 3 months onto the project for your former-windows sysadmins to get the environment set up correctly in Linux.... and information on how to do that is spotty, extremely Linux kernel version dependent and relies heavily on DBA's understanding what needs to be tuned as well .....and then stress testing the beast.
....of course HANA is pretty much Linux - so if looking at using ASE as a stepping stone to HANA, then Linux might be an obvious choice as way to get used to it.
(All of this is my opinion and may not reflect the corporate opinion of SAP)
Bluesky
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