Re:Microsoft is not rebasing Windows to Linux
by wenc on Monday October 12, 2020 @10:08AM
(#24754452)
Just to add some context, Windows remains a significant part of MS's revenue stream, but in recent years has been overtaken by cloud services (Azure). From their most recent SEC-10K (July 2020, pg 92, Part II Item 8) [1]: (revenue, in billion $)
* Server products and cloud services: 41 (in 2020), 26 (in 2018)
* Office products and cloud services: 35 (in 2020), 28 (in 2018)
* Windows: 22 (in 2020), 19 (in 2018)
* Gaming: 12 (in 2020), 10 (in 2018)
Windows continues to be important (probably a defensive revenue stream), but strategically I wonder what the advantage is of switching to a Linux kernel. So many things would break (the 3rd party driver ecosystem for one would have to turn over several times to catch up), plus MS would lose full control over the direction of kernel development. It also doesn't really help or hinder their Azure strategy -- a large percentage of VMs on Azure are Linux VMs. But I'll stop pontificating without real knowledge and just leave it at that.
* Server products and cloud services: 41 (in 2020), 26 (in 2018)
* Office products and cloud services: 35 (in 2020), 28 (in 2018)
* Windows: 22 (in 2020), 19 (in 2018)
* Gaming: 12 (in 2020), 10 (in 2018)
Windows continues to be important (probably a defensive revenue stream), but strategically I wonder what the advantage is of switching to a Linux kernel. So many things would break (the 3rd party driver ecosystem for one would have to turn over several times to catch up), plus MS would lose full control over the direction of kernel development. It also doesn't really help or hinder their Azure strategy -- a large percentage of VMs on Azure are Linux VMs. But I'll stop pontificating without real knowledge and just leave it at that.
[1] https://microsoft.gcs-web.com/static-files/4e7064ed-bbf7-414...