Basically, Ubuntu steam rolls the other distributions in terms of reach. My guess, looking at previous Visual C++ posts about a gdb extension [0], and them aski

Basically, Ubuntu steam rolls the other distributions in terms of reach. My guess, looking at previous Visual C++ posts about a gdb extension [0], and them asking about CMake projects [1], is that Visual C++ will support seamless building, and debugging of Linux programs. This then makes it super easy for developers to develop an Ubuntu binary. Having a large number of people developing on Ubuntu, may increase the demand for Ubuntu Server (with support where the real money is). I really only see an upside for Canonical. 0. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/11/18/announcing-the-vs-gdb-debugger-extension/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/11/18/announcin... 1. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/02/29/developing-c-cross-platform-projects-with-cmake/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/02/29/developin...