Hail Microsoft And The Power Of WE
Most would probably agree that Apple has been a more successful business than Microsoft in the last few years. After all, Apple has been at the forefront of the mobile computing revolution, while Microsoft has lagged the competition in this important area.
However, things are surprisingly different when looking at stock price performance over the middle term: Microsoft stock has gained nearly 98% since January of 2013, versus a much more modest gain in the neighborhood of 40% for Apple over the same period.
What is the reason behind the growing value of Microsoft stock and Apple’s woeful decline? Much of it can be attributed to one company reimagining itself around the idea of the collective we , while the other lethargically pushes forward with a focus on the singular me.
When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stepped into office in early 2014, he vowed to build the company’s future around the idea of collective innovation. With a new Microsoft Office 365 centered around collaboration, and a corollary Microsoft internal culture built upon the same foundation, the company has sailed forward effortlessly and gracefully stacking up a series of major industry wins, as Apple struggles with misstep after misstep.
Whether it is the $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn today by Microsoft with an eye on advancing collaborative commerce through platform business models that bring people and ideas together to imagine a better future, the runaway success of the Surface, or the widely applauded XBox One which shuns the modularity focus some in the industry have tried in recent months in lieu of a streamlined device that brings together the power of Microsoft video game technology all in one powerful unit, the company clearly sees the power of We-Commerce and is leveraging it to restore the tech titan to its days of glory.
Perhaps Tim Cook should take a page out of Nadella’s playbook as iPhone sales continue to lag and we impatiently wait for a real Apple entertainment offering. Today companies thrive from allowing many to bite at the “apple” of ideation and it’s clear that after dominating unquestioned for the past decade, Apple should perhaps look back to one of the core Jobsian collaborative principles the company was founded upon:
You have to run by the best ideas and not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win.
In the meantime, let’s hail Microsoft and its amazing resurgence centered upon the awesome power of WE.
Billee Howard is Founder + Chief Engagement Officer of Brandthropologie, a cutting edge communications collective specializing in helping organizations and individuals to produce innovative, creative and passionate dialogues with target communities, consumers and employees, while blazing a trail toward new models of artful, responsible, and sustainable business success. Billee is a veteran communications executive in brand development, trend forecasting, strategic media relations, and C-suite executive positioning. She has a book dedicated to the study of the sharing economy called WeCommerce released in December 2015 as well as a blog entitled the #HouseofWe dedicated to curating the trends driving our economy forward. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes on the topics of marketing, storytelling and the collaborative economy.
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PS — This post first appeared on Billee’s Forbes account.
