Companies care where the growth is. Azure has obviously grown tremendously over the last decade and a half from nothing to the most important part of Microsoft.

This isn't specifically or even unique to Microsoft. In fact, it perfectly explains Windows because this pattern has been repeated so often by so many other companies.

Personally, I think Microsoft's strategy when it comes to Windows is a mistake. There are so many companies that would kill to own a platform (see Meta) and Microsoft has this dominate platform. It's Windows that, I believe, is responsible for their cloud success. It also makes decent revenue. But they have a cloud CEO and they have cloud success and desktop operating systems are out of fashion.