[jacques_chester]

I call it the Spaghetti Cannon Strategy.

Load up a cannon full of ideas, fire and see what sticks.

Microsoft were doing it before Google, but the financial-strategic dynamics of those businesses is very similar.

There's a fountain of cash and a series of spaghetti cannons around it blasting away furiously. Almost nothing sticks. But that's OK, because there's just so much money.

[philwelch]

Microsoft also fell into the trend-chasing trap before Google. It's a very fine line, though. Excel was probably trend-chasing at its time, but they were doing so many things at once back then that going head-to-head with Lotus 1-2-3 wasn't a bad idea to throw in there. Whereas stuff like Windows Phone or Zune seemed like major strategic shifts dictated from the top, not just "oh let's make one of those too".