Will Microsoft follow Google into the renewable-energy black hole?
Google has announced that it plans to spend "tens of millions" of dollars in R&D to help discover new renewable energy sources -- based on wind, solar-thermal, geothermal and other "potential breakthrough technologies."
Will Microsoft follow suit? I hope not.
Microsoft tends to ape Google's every move (except in the handful of cases where it actually beats Google to the punch -- as it did with SkyDrive, Microsoft's competitor to Google's still-unannounced GDrive -- but for which it gets no credit.)
Microsoft already is spreading itself awfully thin, with more and more new initiatives in everything from healthcare services, to digital-media players, on top of its core software-development projects. Does Microsoft really need to siphon off more of its R&D talent to work on an area that is so far outside its primary areas of expertise?
Sure, power consumption and power sources are relevant to a company that is building new datacenters all over the world at a breakneck pace. But it seems to me that Microsoft already has too many irons in the fire.
What do you think? Should Microsoft get into the renewable-energy business? Should Google?