the short answer is GREED.... corporations are only interested in profits. The global economy is changing and the FIAT world is starting to notice that crypto has benefits that far outweigh the short term volatility risk.
I don't think the GREED is the only reason.
All companies need to carry out research. I always keep Andrew Grove's phrase "only the paranoid survive." If the cryptocurrency is real, they need to figure out what it is. MS, for example, participated in O'Caml development for a long time before they introduce F#. So if these large companies are worrying about their long term survival, they need to find out how the cryptocurrencies work. Many large companies are behind Iota.