Microsoft has announced that it will sponsor ASF “Apache Software Foundation”. Yahoo and Google are already on board.
Microsoft was quick to say that they will not ditch IIS as tremendous work is constantly being put into it. IIS 8 is already in development and native support for PHP is on the todo list.
As quated from MS;
Open Specification Promise: Microsoft is putting a wide range
of protocols that were formerly in the Communications Protocol Program
under the Open Specification Promise (OSP). This guarantees their
freedom from any patent claims from Microsoft now or in the future, and
includes both Microsoft-developed and industry-developed protocols.