Maybe a stupid question, but why doesn't Google just sell the services they no longer want to support? Spin it off. It's gotta be worth something and they likely have an enviable amount of users just from the name.
Google probably no longer wants to support it because it's losing money and they see no feasible plan that will make it profitable.
You can still sell companies like that, if they have valuable assets. But the buyer would still shut down the service and make money off the valuable assets (typical by selling them to someone who can use them).
In this case, I think there are valuable assets -- some of the tech, and the people -- but Google has a use for these themselves, so no need to get a buyer involved. That is, they are doing directly what a buyer would do anyway: shut down the money-losing service and making use of the remaining valuable assets.
