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by ta89489544 1794 days ago
My understanding from the OPs comment was that IBMs failure to cannabalize it's AS/400 market led to the failure of it's PC business. IBM chose to stifle it's own product to keep a more profitable product alive and as a result IBM's PC business failed. That sounds like exactly how things should work in ideal free market capitalism. The idea isn't that every business will choose to make better products to deal with competitive pressure, but that those who don't will die.
1 comments

Parent also said:

> To be explicit, making the bet to cannibalize your own market is one of the toughest any company can make. High risk, high reward.

In other words, it is considered a viable strategy, although also a risky one. The fact that it didn't pan out in this instance doesn't change that.