The agreement to buy a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook by Microsoft (MSFT) for $240 million, to me, underscores a weakness in Microsoft that they have to come to terms with.
They are paying huge amounts of money for companies or pieces of companies because they are on a continual mission to attempt to catch Google (GOOG), or even to not lose more ground to them. While this benefits companies that they believe will help them, it is definitely a sign that they have lost an edge.
For example, to invest in Facebook at a valuation which comes to $15 billion, is unbelievable. There's nothing whatsoever to warrant that, other than it gets a lot 
of press coverage.
What I want to talk about though is the continuing temptation to do something because everybody else does it. We can't as business leaders enter into that game. We must invest in things that make sense for our company.
For whatever reason, Microsoft has lost its edge, and its leadership is playing follower, rather than the leader they used to be. That's the reason they're investing huge amounts of money in things that are questionable at best.
It's of course all related to trying to tap into the display ad market on the Internet, with their purchase of aQuantive and now a piece of Facebook. They obviously felt they had to do this to keep Google, and to a lesser extent, Yahoo (YHOO) from getting it.
That's a poor strategy to me. If we're in the place where we're responding only to our competitors, then they are essentially calling the shots of our business, rather than formulating a strategy and working it.
While we know we have to keep an awareness of what our competitors are doing, we still need to keep with what our company represents and stands for. It's almost like this has become an obsession with Microsoft, rather than part of an integrated strategy. I guess you could call it Google envy, a bad reason to make decisions in any business.
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