Windows was already losing relevance in the data center when Nadya took over -because of Linux. At AWS in 2008 / 2009 adoption was all about LAMP stack - AWS's

Windows was already losing relevance in the data center when Nadya took over -because of Linux. At AWS in 2008 / 2009 adoption was all about LAMP stack - AWS's tools were all geared for LAMP. AWS offered some Windows + SQL Server licenses on their cloud, however it was a struggle to get a deal (any deal) with Microsoft. On the mobile side Windows was losing relevance to iPhone - which Ballmer so famously derided. Satya figured out that with cloud computing Microsoft would still interpose between hardware makers and the customer - and the results show. (Why hardware makers do not figure this out for themselves is a different topic..)