But Visual studio doesn't imply Microsoft's C++. There's clang-cl (http://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#clang-cl), which aims to be a drop-in replacement for Microsoft's compiler (haven't used it, so I don't know its quality)

Also, Visual Studio 2015 will ship with clang (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2014/11/12/visual-stu...). Yes, that's for Android (and, in the future, iOS) only, but it would not surprise me if that it is a sign of things to come: either Microsoft starts following developments faster, or people will move to clang for development. And I doubt the current Microsoft would be bothered if their customers moved to use clang, as long as they kept using Microsoft technologies (even if that's limited to running on Azure)