There are plenty of things wrong with the "ol' college try", the a few big ones off the top of my head would be a dilution of resources (engineering and otherwise - though this doesn't seem to bother Google much). Turning allies into enemies - I'm not really sure its smart for Google to try to "beat" everyone in the valley. They need some strategic partners. Brand overload - frankly as much as I like, and use, some Google products, I'm getting seriously sick of them sticking their nose into every corner of the internet.