More accurately, it's impressive that Microsoft, through OpenAI, has stayed ahead of Google, AWS, and Apple while adding $1 trillion to its market cap.
I wouldn't have predicted that it would play out this way.
You're misplacing the value in this value chain. Without OpenAI Microsoft wouldn't even be in the running. It'd be a second rate cloud provider with a dying office productivity software business. OpenAI, on the other hand, would easily find another company to fund its research.
This is definitely not true. Microsoft has an absolute stranglehold on enterprises. They're the #2 cloud provider. The MSFT productivity software biz isn't going anywhere as their bundle is feature complete and they are able to effectively cross sell. The OpenAI partnership has mostly been a PR/marketing play up to this point, though I'm sure it will be driving major revenue in the years to come. In other words, the OpenAI parternship is not driving major rev/profit yet.
I wouldn't have predicted that it would play out this way.