My best guess: Expand the clientele of Azure from 'corporations and C# shops' to 'everybody and their grandma' like AWS has done - basically going after the long tail of cloud hosting. And I think, apart from improving Azure itself, they're also trying to do this by making sure the best possible developer experience is via Microsoft's developer infrastructure, so they get every chance to 'upsell' and integrate seamlessly in the tools you're already using. At the same time, they're trying to make cross platform development (via Xamarin and WSL) the most convenient way to target other OS's, so they're still in on the action when iOS, Android and Linux webservers are involved.

> basically going after the long tail of cloud hosting.

I want to really stress that your thesis is on point, but it's not about cloud hosting per se. If software is eating the world, and everyone is going to have some level of proficiency as a dev, Microsoft is targeting being the digital operating system of the economy. You write and run your business on Microsoft, whether you're a Fortune 500 or 5 people working out of a coworking space, and you can even get email, team chat, office apps, workflow automation tools, and everything else under the MS umbrella if that's what your business needs.

Developers, developers, developers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVTHG-Ev4k

I don't know if I should be happy about Microsoft going away from the Not Invented Here-mindset or sad that the best companies get owned by the biggest companies.

if you're asking these questions, you probably don't understand how microsoft makes money.

MS already has a working business model (a very lucrative one at that) for enterprise, they can just integrate it into their existing user base and they will gladly pay. There's no hidden agenda.

I'd mark it largely under marketing. As others have already said, Azure is Microsoft's real moneymaker. Forget about Windows and Office, they are a shrinking market.

In the end, who makes the decision on which tools to use? Developers and technical leads, not some CEO or middle management. Position yourself withing the developer community, built a good name, andbe sure they will consider other Microsoft services as well. Especially when they already integrate very well with you toolchain.

I don't even know what you are talking about. Even the highest estimates analyst estimates place Azure revenue at 20bn out of the 130bn MSFT pulls. Earnings-wise it-s even more lopsided

Yeah, the AppGet/WinGet fiasco is disappointing to say the least.

I think MS is mostly trying to ensure cohesion between the tooling and their Azure platforms/services. This is their longer term strategy... which has largely moved Directory services and Office to subscriptions models, and shoring up the losses of Windows Server deployments with rented servers on their infrastructure being the least friction and a revenue source moving forward.