If I recall correctly there were years when Microsoft was a top contributor to the kernel. Long before Azure. I think it was mostly for Microsoft hardware like joysticks and mice.
It might be because they were developing Azure. And they also include Linux distributions in Windows too, so it makes sense for Microsoft to work on it. Microsoft is one of the few top paying Platinum members in the Linux Foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members
If I recall correctly there were years when Microsoft was a top contributor to the kernel. Long before Azure. I think it was mostly for Microsoft hardware like joysticks and mice.
It might be because they were developing Azure. And they also include Linux distributions in Windows too, so it makes sense for Microsoft to work on it. Microsoft is one of the few top paying Platinum members in the Linux Foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members