To be fair, this is easy to say in hindsight; but it also does not account for companies that successfully embrace new technologies/paradigm shifts/etc, and for all the fads that incumbent companies rightfully dismissed.

Isn't it literally the innovator's dilemma?

Edit: I felt they'd found one organisational solution to this after the netburst bust, what with their R&D branch in Israel (?) working on an alternative (pentium m and what would become the 'Core' architecture) without too much disturbance and avoiding the pitfalls of working on competing products?

To be fair, Nokia did innovate a lot.

But there are only so much your engineers are allowed to do when competing with the company's current cash cow.