In an update on the development of Linux 3.0 the LWN.net site cites Microsoft employee K. Y. Srinivasan as a top contributor to the kernel code. He has made 343 changes, followed by David S. Miller with 176 changes. Most of the changes seek to clean up the code implementing a driver for Hyper-V virtualization that Microsoft has published back in 2009. Kernel developers refused to incorporate it due to not adhering to coding standards. Now Microsoft tries to get that code into the Kernel to improve the Linux support of its virtualization hypervisor Hyper-V.

David Wheeler writes in his blog that only "Red Hat, Intel, Novell, and IBM had more contributions." When measured by number of lines changed, Microsoft would still be among the top 15 contributors.

By improving the Linux support in Hyper-V Microsoft tries to get a share of the growing Linux market. To that end Microsoft even offers support for the free Cent OS Linux distribution which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.