Perhaps the most interesting rivalry in the business world over the last generation has been the competitive battle between Apple and Microsoft. The twists and turns that these two companies have gone through are legend -- as have been the experiences and action of their leaders, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. One interesting way to look at their success is to examine some essence, quality, and core value that was critical to their accomplishment.
On the Apple side, it has been the ability to express people’s individuality through breakthrough technology. From the very beginning, Apple has seen itself as a company doing battle with the establishment, embodied in the perceived IBM-centric world of hierarchy and conformity. With breakthrough, easy to use, people-oriented products, Apple has aimed to break down these barriers, allowing the individual to express his capacities in full. This ability to bring out human individuality is one of the hallmarks of Apple’s values, drive, and success. The result has been products that have revolutionized the computer world, and indeed the world at large.
In the years I have observed Microsoft’s success, an almost opposite quality, essence, and value stands out. It is an extraordinary ability to collaborate with its partners and users. Microsoft at every stage has sought to open itself to creating relationships with hardware vendors, corporations, and users in order to extend its technology into the wider sphere. When Microsoft developed its original DOS personal computer operating system, it encouraged dozens of PC manufacturer to use it. That more open-ended model continued with the release of Windows and then Windows Mobile. Likewise, any developer who has worked with the company knows how they have bent over backwards to forge relationships with partners, while expanding Microsoft’s market. The result has been a 90% market share in PC operating systems, creating a company that is a virtual money making machine.
These same two factors -- individuality and collaboration -- are central dynamics of life itself. On the one hand, there is the need to express one’s self and individuality in life, even as there is the necessity to cooperate with others. This is a central dynamic that is perpetually working itself out in society. For example, in America, individuality is there everywhere, almost in the extreme; and yet its collaborative capacities – i.e. its ability to work for the common good, and to cooperate with a collective of nations -- is often sorely lacking. If the US embraced collaboration as much as individuality, it would almost certainly maintain its role of evolutionary leader of the world. In Asia, we see more of the other side, where collaboration is at the forefront, and true individuality is too often missing. That too is working itself out.
Of course, each alone -- individuality or collaboration -- is limited; but a part, not the whole of what is necessary for human progress. However, working in tandem, these two dynamics are fully capable of harnessing the best of society, and releasing the infinite potentials of life.
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