Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has emailed the supplier’s global workforce calling for greater cohesion.
“I believe we can do magical things when we come together with a shared mission, clear strategy and a culture that brings out the best in us individually and collectively,” wrote Nadella.
He called on employees to help Windows users upgrade their PCs to Windows 10, which will be available as a free download from July 29 2015. A report from Spiceworks found that 96% of IT decision-makers are interested in Windows 10, and 60% of IT departments have tested or are actively testing Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS).
“We want to upgrade as many of our current Windows 7 and 8.1 customers to Windows 10 as possible through our free upgrade offer. We see this as an opportunity to support and celebrate how people and communities upgrade their world every day,” wrote Nadella.
He said he had spent the past year asking the question, “what would happen if we disappear?”.
In the email, published on GeekWire, Nadella discussed how Microsoft employees should cleave to a common goal. “We are a family of individuals united by a single, shared mission. It’s our ability to work together that makes our dreams believable and, ultimately, achievable.”
Nadella hoped people would use Microsoft software to make a difference in the world. He wrote: “We stand in awe of what humans dare to achieve, and we are motivated every day to empower others to achieve more through our technology and innovation.”
Rather than present Windows as a competitive platform, Nadella wrote: “The world is diverse. We will better serve everyone by representing everyone on the planet. We will be open to learning our own biases and changing our behaviours so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Microsoft.
“We don’t just value differences, we seek them out, we invite them in. As a result, our ideas are better, our products are better and our customers are better served.”
He said this sense of openness began with recent partnerships with Box and DropBox to support alternative cloud storage platforms to its own OneDrive. Nadella said the company had also introduced “unconscious bias training”.
Microsoft is working on delivering Office 365 across devices as part of Nadella’s so-called “portability of experience”, with the company releasing Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for Android phone on the 24 June 2015.
