Microsoft is primarily a cloud services company now. Legacy products need to fund themselves and it's difficult to get much for a Windows consumer license these

Microsoft is primarily a cloud services company now. Legacy products need to fund themselves and it's difficult to get much for a Windows consumer license these days, so the Windows group has to find revenue where they can. At least the people in the Office group have a nice revenue stream from Office 365. Consumer Windows just isn't a viable standalone product anymore, at least not one that can cover its own costs easily. Windows Server still brings in revenue for licenses, so whatever development on Server that makes its way over to Consumer is probably a subsidy, though I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to have one department charge another for services.