[sodafountan]

I think stranger things have happened, but I don't really believe this is all that likely. Windows has sucked for 30 years now; tacking on another 15 probably won't change all that much about the current state of things.

Microsoft is an enterprise, and enterprises will continue to crank out enterprisey stuff. Linux is free and open source, developed by people with passion - some of it, I assume, is out of necessity. Unless the working world dramatically changes over the next 15 years, Microsoft is still going to Microsoft.

Windows sucks, Azure sucks, Office sucks. Microsoft is a corporation designed to make money, they have a deadlock on the market. From an investor's point of view, they're doing just fine. From a shareholder's point of view, uprooting the entire Windows base to make tech people happy isn't worth the investment. Microsoft hasn't been about making tech people happy since it went public. Microsoft makes money and employs people. People half-heartedly go to work to earn a living, they produce enterprise-grade software. Enterprise software makes money. That's all the investor cares about.

Actually, as a matter of fact, having Windows around to drive the continued development of Linux might be a good thing. I know Windows sucks, I know virtually anything technical is dramatically easier on Linux, but anything without competition eventually stagnates. Even if Windows exists simply as a "What not to do" in Linux, it's probably good that it remains around.

Currently typing this on a machine that dual-boots both Windows and Linux. Why? Because my laptop came installed with it.