They could just as easily run their cloud services on a Linux or BSD based OS. Nothing about a "Devices and Services" company requires a proprietary OS.
I think it really just shows that they aren't that serious about actually pivoting their business model. Their leadership aspires to be a devices and services company because they look at their competitors and see that Apple is making money from devices, and Google and Amazon are making money from services, so they think they need to compete in those fields. But they're not going to truly pivot because that would require spinning off or killing their core, cash cow business model, which is a PC operating system and a suite of productivity software products.
That's a good analysis. Interestingly, Apple also seems to be a services company (with their iTunes system and iCloud) but their iCloud system in particular seems to be a service that only exists to help their devices. Pretty clever.
I will wait to see what Microsoft does. As you say, for them to be truly "devices and services" only, that would be a massive change. And not what people expect from Microsoft..?
