Microsoft has signed up to become a Platinum sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation. In practice this will means a contribution of $100,000 (≈64,000€) per annum. Microsoft also said that it will contribute code to PHP and will commit to provide royalty free specifications for Windows Server and .Net Framework protocols.
This new found affinity for the Apache project is probably related to the foundation’s “efforts to support Microsoft Office’s new standard Open XML file formats via the Apache POI project.”
This does not mark a move away from IIS on the part of Microsoft, as Sam Ranji posted on his blog:
It is not a move away from IIS as Microsoft’s strategic web server technology. We have invested significantly in refactoring and adding new, state-of-the-art features to IIS, including support for PHP. We will continue to invest in IIS for the long term and are currently under way with development of IIS 8.
