Summary: Norway's adoption of GNU/Linux was noted here last year; it has since then increased a lot; if one counts mobile devices as well, not to mention ChromeOS, it's looking far worse for Microsoft and good for "Linux" as even in rich countries we see that it's not about price but about control/freedom
At this point it would be rather foolish to assume that IBM will let Red Hat just "do its own thing" or maintain its corporate culture, identity, projects etc.