The study compared trees that had been thinned by machine with those that had not been thinned.
VOA: special.2009.11.10
So Microsoft turned the Xbox 360 into the dominant games console, notby making a better gaming machine, but by giving people a platform for getting more out of their living room.
Though nobody used this analogy, I understand the government argument to be: just as we are not going to recover by asking Siemens to make mops and buckets, we are also not going to recover by selling high-end machine tools to pensioners in Potsdam.