Good for the bottom line?
That, and good PR too. System admins and power users have been clamouring for SSH support for decades. Lack of SSH has been a reason that a lot of admins and users didn't use Windows in applications where communications (other than remote desktop) was required.
Microsoft has demonstrated that they can be astonishingly stubborn and pig-headed. But that's changing, and I attribute most/all of the change to the departure of Ballmer. He ignored the bottom line concerns for over a decade due to his arrogance.