At the end of the day these big companies realize that bitcoin / blockchain / alts were created by someone other than themselves and they are in a scrambling phase to see how they can get a piece. Good luck getting a piece of decentralization.
Although i agree with your view, i disagree with the decentralization comment.
Centralization is unfortunately an unavoidable outcome - it's how, and how much, that matters - Whether it be the centralization of wealth (Coins) in any one few peoples hands (Unavoidable), or the centralization of mining power (In the case of bitcoin). Hence i'm not too keen on POW as people often overlook the mining power aspect and the repercussions this will have on bitcoins "Trustless" ledger as a whole (51% attack, for example).
The centralization of POW is already an issue, with only large investors and companies now either mining, or profiting from creating mining technology, or mining pool owners calling the shots. I believe this will give them the same powers of exploit we see from FIAT banks today. This is not acceptable from a new and "revolutionary" financial tool. In fact I think this is just much more sinister and misleading.
I like to view centralization similar to liberty or equality. Small amounts is advantageous - Too much liberty = anarchy or discord - not good for society. Likewise too much centralization = monopoly, corruption. Equality? = Self entitlement, greed.......too much of anything is naive and dangerous.
There's a fine line. A line that gets increasingly blurred as economic troubles (Triggered by dishonest money) spur on political disorder from a steadily impoverished populace. Not only do we need to seperate the banks/business from state (Took us long enough to do so for the Church) We also need to reinstate some honest money. I think Crypto can do it, Bitcoin was the test, but it's definitely not the end.
How my view correlates to the subject at hand though; I think Microsoft is, typically, trying to horde as much as they can with these obscure agreements and it's dangerous for small developing crypto markets, and it won't bode well for the future unless a better, less ambiguous agreement can be proposed.
