See also Apple "Advanced Technology Group", pre-1997. One of Jobs' first acts on his return was to kill it. I remember all those cool demos we used to get at WWDC of things that never ever saw the light of day while the core OS was turning to crap.
To be fair to Jobs, he came into Apple and had a really short amount of time to turn it around. I believe they had something like 2 months of available cash. And their stock was in the single digits. He shut a lot of things down; if you weren't making money (ATG, Newton, and the consumer products) you were gone. He also cut off charity and left it to Cook to re-implement it.
This is why I believe Apple are holding onto so much cash. Far easier to ask banks for million dollar loans when you have billions in savings rather than begging private equity who'll strip you to pieces.
