Programmer I think it is healthy that Linux was beaten. The test results will just intensify the entire Linux movement into making what is already an excellent O.S even better.
Competition is a good thing.
It would have been nice to have left both getting a hammering over a period of say, two months. That would have revealed some frightening stuff. I've no doubt that Linus and the entire Linux community will address the issues raised in the recent tests and it will come back. Of that there is no doubt. It's grown too large to just disappear whether Microsoft like it or not.