I think the core insight here is right, that as far as they were concerned it seemed silly to miss out on a chance to sell their "google-scale" experience and k

I think the core insight here is right, that as far as they were concerned it seemed silly to miss out on a chance to sell their "google-scale" experience and know-how in many cloud/distributed contexts. But similair things were true for lots of dead products, and google's willingness to launch a large number of products and only keep the ones that gain massive market traction shows just as much paranoia about ending up with a stable full of lqggards and weak brands. If user growth flattens out after two years, be nervous.