I'd assume that OpenAI is simply doing Microsoft's bidding, and is a way for them to indirectly acquire companies with very little to no scrutiny. Continuation

I'd assume that OpenAI is simply doing Microsoft's bidding, and is a way for them to indirectly acquire companies with very little to no scrutiny. Continuation of the existing product isn't usually of concern in these cases, and appears to be very common practice even for companies that are otherwise well known for almost never deprecating their products (e.g. various AWS acquisitions.)