ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Microsoft hits refresh on its corporate soul
It seems that 'soul' may well join 'cloud' in boardroom vocabularies worldwide
At the end of the last century, Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote a seminal book on the digital future, called Business @ the Speed of Thought, which became a handbook for CEOs wrestling with a strategy for the information future. Ironically, Microsoft then lost its own way as Gates's successor, Steve Ballmer, stamped a brash, arrogant culture on the organisation. At the time the book was published, Microsoft was the most valuable company in the world, with market capitalisation briefly passing $600-billion. Ballmer took over shortly thereafter. Within six months, helped along by the tech bubble bursting, the company had lost half its value. Last month, for the first time this century, it finally returned to the 1999 mark. Only Apple and Google are worth more. What changed? Many credit the current CEO, Satya Nadella, who took over from Ballmer in 2014. The value of the company has increased by more than 50% since then, and is reaching new highs weekly. It is fitting, then, that Nad...
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