There's no rule/law that says businesses can't compete with themselves. Taking multiple independent bets seems like a reasonable way to put a lot of resources i

There's no rule/law that says businesses can't compete with themselves. Taking multiple independent bets seems like a reasonable way to put a lot of resources into a market that you are weak in. This is similar to how startups beat big companies, a small focused group sometimes beat a big one. If you fund multiple small groups, you multiply your chances of finding a winner. Microsoft famously killed its Courier project because it competed with Windows. Its now a decade later, and they are still way behind in tablet market share. Maybe if they had built both Windows for tablets and Courier, they would've done better. All that said, Google has done a poor job of earning their user's trust after killing things like Reader. I believe the execs learned their lesson there.