Microsoft's push for its cloud platform

The way Microsoft is growing its cloud platform is by making investments in hyper-growth local startups. For instance in India, it had made a substantial investment in Flipkart - India's leading e-commerce marketplace (which competes with Amazon.in). Soon after, flipkart announced that it will use Microsoft Azure for its cloud infrastructure. Seems like Microsoft is getting into a similar partnership with Ola.

Brilliant move or desparate one? Thoughts?