Articles with the following titles would be considered a joke

1. “BMW is planning to merge its series i5 cars and Motorrad bikes”

2. “P&G is planning to merge tissue paper and toilet paper”

3. “Arm and Hammer is working on merging face wash, body soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, and dish cleaner”

Not that these combinations can’t be made or have never been made but consumers would just not buy them. They are usually inferior or more convoluted, or even worse, both.

But the Android-Chrome OS merger stories keep popping up every few months. Excluding the technical jargon, it’s as much of hogwash as the first three. In the longer run, markets specialize and not generalize.

Note: The only time when generalization appears to win is when an entirely new market is created which renders multiple existing markets customer-less. And that too is a head fake in favor of generalization.