The author is advocating giving the profits to shareholders rather than investing in innovation. He phrases his "spin off" comment as "let someone else invest in innovation."
Cash cow disease costs _stockholders_ untold (sometimes actively buried in accounting maneuvers) dollars. Consider Xbox, which consumed billions (that's with a 'b') before eventually turning a profit of millions (that's with an 'm'). If Xbox had been spun into a separate company, then Microsoft _stockholders_ could have kept those billions (with a 'b') and let _someone else_ decide to invest billions in trying to jump into the game console business.
Cash cow disease costs _stockholders_ untold (sometimes actively buried in accounting maneuvers) dollars. Consider Xbox, which consumed billions (that's with a 'b') before eventually turning a profit of millions (that's with an 'm'). If Xbox had been spun into a separate company, then Microsoft _stockholders_ could have kept those billions (with a 'b') and let _someone else_ decide to invest billions in trying to jump into the game console business.
(emphasis mine).