Adding a humongous blob of unmodifiable software doesn't really align with any of that. In the best case people will shun this, in the worst case it could harm the culture.
Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now?
(Edit: Added "...unlikely to ever be mainstream...")
From a different perspective: As someone who until recently lived in Washington, Microsoft's management stack hasn't changed. It is still a very Sales-driven organization, with very little leeway given to Engineering to drive things that are useful, interesting, or innovative. How this fits into a Microsoft sales plan, I don't see; It might be somebody's pet project based on their child's interest in a Pi (As was basically the origin of the Zune and Kinect; I know the sales guys who responsible for allowing those to be engineered). Regardless, I expect it to be a redheaded stepchild, because it's sales potential is not proven.
You say you lived in Washington, are you implying you were a Microsoft employee? Seems from everyone I'm hearing from that they've been making major structure changes for a while now and a lot of the old management has been shuffled or removed (especially with those huge rounds of layoffs) so I'm curious as to why I'm hearing something different from what you're saying.
I feel bad when I have the "anti-MS" feeling. I truly do; I feel like I'm being over-simplistic, I feel that I'm being prejudiced... Well, you get the point. However, you can't really say this is "kind of old". "Embrace, extend and extinguish" practices are recent, even considering the short "horizons" in IT. And, after the "Mobile-first, cloud-first" vision [1], you can't really blame people for finding these MS initiatives a lot like "hangin' with the cool kids" or "sounding hip".
[1] http://news.microsoft.com/2014/03/27/satya-nadella-mobile-fi...
This announcement is undoubtedly partly publicity-driven. But its also about keeping Windows visible and relevant to groups who may not use PCs much. And if the RPi does become the standard IoT hardware platform, then Microsoft will want a bit of that too.
And embrace, extend, extinguish makes no sense in a community-driven ecosystem. MS knows that.
So assuming EEE would "make sense in community-driven ecosystem" they still would do that. Wouldn't they ?
I'm ok with Windows on Rasp2 - Linux needs competition.
No, they're still evil monkey corporation. Their marketing has improved and so has the quality of some of their products; but do not fall for it, copulation will ensue. They have nothing in common with "open" or "free".