I think that, in addition to mobile devices, the browser is the new desktop and MS has conceded that to Google with Edge to be built on Chromium, so the chance

I think that, in addition to mobile devices, the browser is the new desktop and MS has conceded that to Google with Edge to be built on Chromium, so the chance of a MS Linux seem slim. Bill Gates always talked about beating competitors by commoditizing their offering; I think you're seeing MS do that to themselves with containerization built on linux or at the most nanoserver. It may take twenty years to kill off the last version in corporate IT, but windows desktop is dead.