I suspect VSCode, just like NETCore will become their standard. I'm sure they have a path to switchover. They are banking on Azure now, so anything that pulls people to Azure is what they are investing in.
The biggest difference I can see between the Gates/Balmer era and the Nadella era is Gates/Balmer refused to do anything that would in any way endanger their Windows platform. This made them a ton of money for many years, but stole from their future as Linux took over the server side.
(Disclosure: I work for Microsoft, but not on VS, VS Code, VS Online or VS Floor Wax.)
I don't think this is true at all. I don't think VSCode has any Visual Studio code in it at all, but that's probably why they are able to be so nimble with it - no legacy cruft.