It's a very profitable strategy, though perhaps less charismatic.
Other companies do this too, but I've seen few tech companies as good at copy, defeat, repeat as Microsoft.
In this same vein, they rarely try to take an old product and radically update it (at least not with success).
Partially because it's harder to make an exact copy of a new software concept with an existing technology.
They prefer to abandon existing products. (Unless the computing industry at large still gives the space mindshare, or the profits are too delicious to let go of.)
As I think about it....
It's sort of like Fortune 500 level FOMO...
Disclosure: I used to work at Microsoft. Love the company. But get irritated that their strategy often seems capricious -- chasing the latest industry squirrel.