People are also weary of Google doing this and you see comments on it in almost every discussion on HN of a Google product.

But they are. Keep, Fit are prime examples of stretching but offering a mediocre "service".

The way I see it, Google turned hard into a direction from building services with APIs into data collection silos. Google+ with Photos, Keep, Fit, Now. The data is even isolated from each other or really hard to access : - you can't access Keep data anywhere, or what you upload on it - Google+ Photos are available on web, not in Drive. You can see Drive photos in it, but you can't edit them with auto awesome

Fit is so basic that it offers practically nothing that it doesn't already exists out there. Data representation is in a form of one graph of total calories/steps. It does require you to enable location tracking though, to be able to automatically track steps/workouts (how suprising), which takes a major effect on the battery life.

Google is coming for your data and coming hard.

[1] http://beta.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/other-device...

Hey! When did Windows Phone die?

Not everyone remembers, but it was viewed as near-impossible to dethrone Palm, but inside of what, 5 years?, MS had Palm selling WM devices.

Any company with more cash than cultural relevance will do the same.

I don't think bing belongs on your list though. It's not making headway in the market, but it's not dead yet either.

Microsoft can drop the occasional service, but they rarely run from big platform bets. Most above-mentioned products were small fish or even just websites -- with the exception of Silverlight (but that's because in-browser media plugins as a category have been basically obsoleted across the whole market) and Zune (again, mp3 players have been basically obsoleted), they don't really sit on the same shelf as Office, Windows, Xbox, Windows Phone, Bing, VisualStudio or SQLServer.

Search and mobile are way too strategic to be dropped. There's no "there" anywhere else for a company as big as Microsoft!

They can lose $3B/yr for a long, long time!

Unfortunately Microsoft does not break out its Bing revenue separately (and a Microsoft spokesperson referred us back to the earnings release when asked) so exactly how much Bing rakes in is anyone's guess, but the company did note Bing managed a 40% ad revenue increase in its recent fourth quarter ended June. CEO Satya Nadella, one-time leader of the division, also noted Bing would reach breakeven within two years.

So Nadella thinks it'll break even in 2016.

0. http://www.thestreet.com/story/12821420/1/microsoft-is-using...

You seem to be claiming this is going to happen to IE as well? Seems a bit far fetched, given it is still used by millions of people and something like 20% of all desktop browsers used is IE.