Analysis:
The partnership between Microsoft and Open Robotics, the company behind ROS, is mutually beneficial. For Microsoft, ROS for Windows 10 is an opportunity to expose its Azure cloud platform, and associated products, to ROS developers around the world. This will help Microsoft bring innovations in edge computing to robots.

ROS for Windows 10 also creates a more familiar, user-friendly development environment. For example, ABB recently released ROS nodes for Windows. ABB roboticists can bring up ROS and RobotStudio, the company’s simulation and offline programming software, on the same Windows machine to commission the robot and run simulations. This means the simulation tests are now more realistic because the virtual controller running on RobotStudio truly mimics the capabilities of the robot controller. It is also easier for business developers to work on one computer rather than switch among multiple machines.

There was a time when Microsoft was anti-open source. In 2001, Microsoft's then-CEO Steve Ballmer said, “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.” Many robots run on Linux, and Microsoft has had a change of heart over the years. - Steve Crowe