For most small and medium businesses (certainly not FANG), you wouldn't amortize the cost of said server but would take it as a Section 179 expense. This would allow the business to expense the full-cost of the server in the year it's placed into service. Section 174 just further commoditizes the software development skill. Question is: can software dev labor costs be expensed via the Section 179 rule, up to the limit (somewhere north of $1.1MM).