Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation As Platinum Member: Company Realizes Software Developers Use Multiple Platforms Interchangeably?

Hinting at the hatred, Zemlin said, "Microsoft and the Linux Foundation may have had disagreements in the past, but one thing we've always agreed on is that developers are super-important. There's just too much software to be written for any organization to it by themselves. We need to collaborate on these things.... To the skeptics out there, I'd like to say that... if Microsoft loves Linux, on behalf of the over 800 members of the Linux Foundation... we love you too."

It was Nadella who went against the company's unspoken dislike of all things Linux and open source. In 2014, Nadella proclaimed the company loves Linux. Defying the skeptics who chalked up his talks as a mere marketing gimmick, Nadella stayed true to his words. He spearheaded other projects, including the Red Hat partnership, open-sourcing .NET, and running SQL Server on Linux, that eventually culminated in the partnership with the Linux Foundation, reported Geek Wire.

As part of its initiative to enhance collaboration rather than indulge in competition, the MS Office maker will soon make search engine provider Google, who just happens to be Microsoft's direct competitor in the highly lucrative cloud storage and computing segment, a member of its .NET Foundation technical steering committee.

[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]