Funny how the makers of cloud hardware didn’t want to get into the cloud from the start. Intel Cloud would have seemed more normal then a bookseller getting into it.
No risk, no reward. Intel execs wanted less risk and were happy with the easy stream of profits they were getting from their monopoly. Other companies opted to forego taking profits and kept spending on R&D for new avenues for the business to earn money.
I worked for Savvis who initially bought an Intel datacenter in the 90s to get started. Company lore was that Intel couldn't make a profit in the colo space because they over engineered everything. Savvis cut DC staff and cut other services until the data center was profitable.