Why would MS acquire Ubuntu when they could just spin their own distro? What does Ubuntu have to offer to justify what would likely be a massive premium over just hiring whatever developer shortfall they may have?
Ubuntu's (and by extension Canonical's) value is in its brand and existing customer relationships, neither of which Microsoft would have if they rolled their own distro.
I know there's a lot of MS hate around here, but that's ridiculous. Literally everyone would know what Microsoft Linux was within a month. It would be a headline on every tech site across the internet.
Besides, I just suggested one potentil buyer, I want to hear who else besides boring answers like Google.
Outside of the people who are going to hate MS no matter what, I don't know what reasonable CIO would have a negative connotation of MS Linux. They ALREADY maintain multiple branches/distros internally for things like their network OS; and anyone older than a millennial should know they wrote Xenix which was one of the most successful UNIX variants ever sold...