Suppose Microsoft does this with Windows X -- releases a version of Windows with an top-notch UNIX subsystem and excellent tooling. All the geeks tell their fa

Suppose Microsoft does this with Windows X -- releases a version of Windows with an top-notch UNIX subsystem and excellent tooling. All the geeks tell their families to buy Windows PCs, because it "has UNIX underpinnings!" Microsoft splits the UNIX workstation market right down the middle with Mac, and Microsoft's share of the PC market increases from 92% to 96%. How does this help Microsoft financially? Desktop Windows accounts for only 23% of Microsoft's revenues. So Microsoft's overall revenue increases by 1%. But its costs also increase, because they will have to maintain this UNIX environment. Its costs may even increase by more than 1%, because the dev work won't be trivial. Not great for profits. Does it help them sell Windows Server licenses? No. Developers code on the Macbooks today and deploy to Linux -- not to Mac OS X Server. Does it help them sell Azure? I can't see how. Same logic as Windows Server. And Microsoft tries to make a profit. Amazon does not. Thus, Amazon can beat them at pricing. Does it help them sell Office? There's already a version of Office for the Mac. Does it help them sell smartphones and tablets? There's still one heck of a chicken-and-egg problem. Developers are more likely to run the Android tools on Windows X. In fact, the Android tools will now run even better on Windows X, because of the improved UNIX support. It does get Microsoft some "street cred," but how do you turn street cred into profits? Maybe if Microsoft had done this in 1999, then it could've prevented OS X from taking hold as the preferred UNIX workstation of the developer crowd. But in 2014, with Linux and MacOS and Android and iOS already well-established? Frontal assaults are a hard way to win a war. Better to go around the flank. Apple had single-digit share of the PC market when it scored a runaway hit with the iPod. P.S. Services for UNIX has been deprecated. The last release was in 2010.