There are two (main) types of front points with crampons (that I am aware of): Vertical and horizontal ones. Usually vertical is used for technical mountaineering, ice and mixed climbing and horizontal for "non-technical" mountaineering (glacier to moderate mixed).
I can't think of any functional advantage of horizontal front points over vertical ones. By functional I mean that I am not interested in marketing, so cheaper or designed for that particular purpose are not what I am after (there are light all purpose mountaineering crampons with vertical front points).
What is the reason horizontal front points are widely used?