I realize you are likely being rhetorical, but in case you aren't, Ballmer recently said that Linux is not a threat, and likely has not been a threat, even if he thinks that Microsoft did what it needed to do to survive at the time he called Linux a "cancer". [1]

More importantly, Ballmer was not wrong in saying that Microsoft's focus as a company has been and should always be "Developers, Developers, Developers" and everything about this Ubuntu on Windows effort is for Developers.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-id...

It may well be a cancer buts it's won the battle. Better to accept the mutation to the business model while you still can before the cancer kills it

Yes and it's metastasizing.