Hmm. Interesting. Historically, was there ever a period when American companies - tech or not - ever dabbled in this sort of thing, I describe? Or they simply

Hmm. Interesting. Historically, was there ever a period when American companies - tech or not - ever dabbled in this sort of thing, I describe? Or they simply haven't experimented in conglomerates, even prior to the WWs. I am trying to see if this was a measure, reactive to some historic event or if American makers from day one, have always preferred specialization in vertically siloed businesses. Increasingly, software companies like Amazon (with Kindle, Fire phone, Fire TV, Echo etc) are finding that they are having to foray into things like hardware which they are ill-suited for, even if ideally they'd very much like to remain software companies. These new developments are interesting to watch.