Sounds like "the evil empire" of old realized that releasing its platform as Open Source would revitalize its platform.
This is eventually what happens, after the first mover monopolists collect their rent for a decade. I don't mean it in a bad way, just as an observation of repeatable economic trends.
After all, now Microsoft needs more app developers to develop Windows apps and compete on the mobile front.
It's mostly them becoming a service company (Azure) rather than a software company (Windows, Office). The more people that can push code to azure, the more money they will make in the future. So giving people the tools to do that for free makes a lot of sense. Still charging the big money from the enterprises of course, because not doing that would be insane.
The mobile thing is relevant of course, but Azure is where they are betting the farm.
This is eventually what happens, after the first mover monopolists collect their rent for a decade. I don't mean it in a bad way, just as an observation of repeatable economic trends.
After all, now Microsoft needs more app developers to develop Windows apps and compete on the mobile front.