It is death of an operating system. Before our eyes. Microsoft is trying desperately to squeeze a bit more cash out of it but the failing culture within Microsoft is unable to recognise they are driving users off their own product. I already got fed up enough that I basically banned Windows at home and I am impatiently waiting to kill one last Windows box. It is our gaming machine that is generally available to entir…
Many recognise it, but don't care. Windows is not longer the cash-cow it once was even on the server. Azure is the new baby there – they don't care what server OS you run as long as you run it on their kit. In homes and offices Windows is just a vehicle for Office and Visual Studio, they are pushing people more towards the online office variants of Office (users therefore becoming dependent on a subscription for access to apps and storage/backups). Back to the server, and SQL Server runs on Linux these days or (even better for them) Azure-native.
If it wouldn't look terrible to just dump Windows, I'm fairly sure they would do so soon if they hadn't already. It would save them all the hassle of hardware compatibility, dealing with manufactures, being blamed for instability cause by bad drivers (on top of instability cause by bad Windows that is their fault!). They could let Linux & Apple deal with all that crap, and just sell cloud services, Office/SQL/Exchange licences, etc. to users of those OSs. They'd keep something of Windows on their console, but that is minute in comparison because it only needs to be the core & they control the hardware selection, and again that is just a vehicle with which to sell a subscription service to the end user and licensing/SDKs to developers.
Windows is only really moving forwards at all due to momentum, MS would rather be concentrating on other things that are more profitable for less hassle & questionable press.