An interesting and, I fear, misguided decision. I suspect that one of the most underrated factors in the growing popularity of non-Windows platforms is the availability of high-quality free development tools.
The cost of a Visual Studio Standard license is a daunting, but not too bad to someone who's already in an established career. But to a young programmer who's still in school or in the early stages of their career, it's simply unaffordable. And that means that they're going to go with someone else instead.
Folks are generally going to want to stick with the platform they know best, so that's going to lead to a reduced supply of Windows app developers in the short run. Worse yet, in the longer run it will undercut the core of Microsoft's ecosystem by reducing the supply (and driving up the cost) of enterprise developers who are skilled in their platform.
