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by mtkd 6010 days ago
At some point one of these new, non-core, ventures will be identified by historians as the point at which Google made the same mistake as Microsoft and started out on the slow path to insignificance.
1 comments

Do you really think that MS is in trouble because they focused on non-core ventures?

If anything, I'd say the complete opposite: they're in trouble because they're not good at focusing on the web, which is a major non-core venture for them (I think MS Windows & Office are their bread & butter).

Fundamentally, MS never "got" the internet, and they have too much weight to maneuver effectively now.

They are in trouble because they are in so many things that doing something good in one niche will cannibalize sales in another niche.

Make a killer web office suite? Kills off sales of Office and Windows. Make a great webmail site? Kills off Exchange and Windows Server sales.