Alphabet focuses on core businesses, including cloud

Alphabet will focus its biggest bets next year on the staid world of business software and cloud computing, a marked departure from lofty “moonshots” of recent years, such as burrito-carrying drones and super-fast internet service.

Alphabet was formed last year, in part, to insulate the lucrative online advertising business of its Google division from the riskier, more capital-intensive projects now called Other Bets.

The strategy was on display in the company’s third-quarter results, released on Thursday. The technology giant culled investment in Other Bets and doubled down on Google’s cloud and artificial-intelligence initiatives.

Those investments will only accelerate next year, executives told analysts during a conference call that followed a strong third-quarter report, driven largely by growth in Google’s main digital ad business. Bloomberg