Yeah, but they also make money on the office subscriptions. So you also want current working data scientists who would not touch excel to give it a chance because they can use their existing python back-end. Eventually, there would be a service that is Microsoft exclusive, but they have to compete on services.
Idk, it's really up to Microsoft's business units. Office could be the loss leader to get cloud business, but it could be the other way too. Either way, I would hazard that they want people to actually use this integration feature.