Satya Nadella, Microsoft chief executive, talks like a hybrid of a management consultant and a therapist: firmly, quietly and with a good helping of new-agey jargon. He has published a book outlining how empathy can change corporate culture. His default approach, even with old rivals such as Google, is to discuss mutual advantage first, competition second.

This is a striking contrast to his predecessor Steve Ballmer (who had trouble using what a parent would call his “inside voice”) and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, for whom business was an us-versus-them fight to the death.

This soft approach has not put Microsoft on the back foot. The strong revenue growth the company announced last week pushed its shares to an all-time high. The expansion is backed by cloud computing services for businesses — evidence that Mr Nadella was tough enough to win internal battles with the guardians of Microsoft’s legacy personal computing units.