The world was jolted by the rumor that Microsoft is in talks to buy Adobe. The problem is such an acquisition has no benefit for Microsoft, its shareholders or its customers. True Adobe competes against Microsoft in a few markets - online rich media engine (flash vs. silverlight), web development tools (dreamweaver vs expressions) and what else? The truth of the matter is neither of these markets are important enough to Microsoft's strategy either in the business market or the consumer market to make a potential $15 billion dollar investment even remotely valuable to Microsoft investors. Maybe the argument is it will give Microsoft a bigger stick to poke into Apple's eye (in Apple's fight against perennial david Adobe), but there are no likely benefits to Microsoft because Adobe has not proven itself adept at delivering true value to customers.
So I kept asking myself, as I discovered legions of others where doing - What can goofy Balmer see that the rest of us cann't? Or is this one of his many corporate confusion about what direction to steer Microsoft in, with his infamous Yahoo debacle that helped increase and solidify Google's market base and has done little to change Microsoft's search fortune, even after a huge investment in Bing.
In recent months, Microsoft has continued to ponder if it should play in the Mobile market or how much of a play it should make, and had a false start with the tablet market that has given Apple another hard to beat lead with its IPad. Microsoft under Balmer seems like a giant lost at sea. And this latest rumor might just be a pointer to the headline.
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