Now the cat is out of the bag: Linus Torvalds – the father of the Linux Kernel – will join Microsoft! Wooohooo! As we have seen over the last weeks, Microsoft is currently going through a huge transformation, and is now more open to other technologies, like Linux.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced SQL Server for Linux, earlier this week they announced Linux on Windows, and yesterday they announced the support of Visual C++ for Linux. And today they have made the big announcement that Linus Torvalds will join Microsoft! I have no idea how quirky Steve Ballmer will look now. It’s really awesome to see what Satya Nadella has achieved since he was appointed as the new CEO of Microsoft.

Of course, a lot of people will now ask what the role of Linus will be within Microsoft. Linus will join Microsoft as a Senior Technical Fellow. He has the same job title as Dave Cutler, who invented the NT operating system. His job role will be to move more and more stuff from Windows onto Linux.

The ultimate goal that Microsoft wants to achieve here is to retire the entire Windows Operating System product line in favor of Linux! Imagine that: you have all the various Microsoft products, and they will just run on Linux without any need for Windows anymore. Windows will be phased out over the next few years and the future will be Linux!

All in all Linus Torvalds will have a really positive impact on Microsoft and I’m already looking forward where this journey will bring us to.

Thanks for your time,

-Klaus