I think that's their goal, is to be accepted again. Their late rash of investments seem to insinuate that.

Back in the 90's, it was cool to be a Microsoft fan. Not so much over the last decade. They're trying hard to change that.

Supporting BSD rump kernels compiled against the NT api could be a good alternative.

Why not just make a POSIX complaint Windows in the future?

Ironically, Windows NT was certified as POSIX compliant because at the time it was a requirement for systems used by the US government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem

Not only that, there was a buzzing community around it. I'm never quite sure whether geNToo was a joke, but if it was then I wanted to do it for real. But then MS killed the whole API.