Linux is apparently beating Microsoft at its own game and the Windows maker isn't upset because "Microsoft loves Linux..." The operating system has now become the most used OS on Azure according to Sasha Levin, Microsoft Linux kernel developer.
Microsoft had revealed in 2017 that 40% of all Azure virtual machines were based on Linux (via ZDNet), which went up to "about half" in the fall of 2018. Levin has now revealed that "the Linux usage on our cloud has surpassed Windows."
“Every month, Linux goes up,” Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group had told ZDNet. "Native Azure services are often running on Linux."
Microsoft is building more of these services. For example, Azure’s Software Defined Network (SDN) is based on Linux.
As to why Microsoft's love for open source and Linux? Guthrie told the publication that the company realized that "open source is something that every developer can benefit from."
"It’s not nice, it’s essential. It’s not just code, it’s community.”
"We're now the largest open-source project supporter in the world," Microsoft's executive VP boasted.
Microsoft has lately grown into some kind of a grandparent of the industry, stopping its fight with Apple, Android, and Linux. With its desktop operating system, the company has been making efforts to make Windows 10 work better with Android and iPhones. It has also continued to embrace Linux more actively, contributing to the open source community, as well. The Windows maker recently released the now-popular Windows subsystem for Linux and is adopting Google's Chromium engine for its Edge browser, making contributions to the project.
