Making ASP.NET Windows Server only wasn't driving Windows Server sales, it was destroying Windows (and Visual Studio) as a developer platform, and thus, ensuring that no one had any motivation to develop for Windows Phones and tablets. It was a certain path to irrelevance.
Making ASP.NET Linux deployable ensures that Windows stays in the hands of developers. Making Azure Linux friendly ensures that Microsoft can take a slice of that market. And pushing Universal Apps and giving Visual Studio Community and Windows 10, an OS that allows Universal Apps to run on the desktop, for free motivates developers to fill up the app store.
This decision was inevitable and IMHO a huge step in the right direction.
I had to google what Universal Apps are (Windows is a very remote technology stack for me), got it now.
About the .NET on Linux move, so the strategy could be to make more people willing to develop with .NET, bet that they buy VisualStudio, which means Windows desktop licenses and be prepared to see Windows Server replaced by Linux instances running (hopefully for them) on Azure. For that to work they must be bold in selling Azure and luring developers to the .NET stack. I don't foresee developers leaving their 5/10 years investment on other stacks en masse. Maybe new developers will consider .NET as a viable alternative to all the other open source tecnologies. It's a generational gamble and it's going to pay only if they really can compete against AWS and the other VM providers.
However I understand that they must do something, or they'll end up as the company that makes a console and an OS for video gamers and for cheap computers.
Making ASP.NET Linux deployable ensures that Windows stays in the hands of developers. Making Azure Linux friendly ensures that Microsoft can take a slice of that market. And pushing Universal Apps and giving Visual Studio Community and Windows 10, an OS that allows Universal Apps to run on the desktop, for free motivates developers to fill up the app store.
This decision was inevitable and IMHO a huge step in the right direction.