This seems to be directionally correct. To compete with Amazon and get on the cloud train, Microsoft got into the services business with Azure. However, with Az

This seems to be directionally correct. To compete with Amazon and get on the cloud train, Microsoft got into the services business with Azure. However, with Azure, it doesn't really matter what OS your customers are using because they are paying you for compute time either way. Thus, Microsoft could safely embrace Linux without sacrificing their revenue line. I'm not sure if this was Microsoft's intention initially, but it certainly seems to be how things are playing out.