More than once, you may have heard me talk about my personal guidebook of life lessons. Two themes stand out: cooperation and competitiveness, and these concepts continue to motivate me in everything I do.

When it comes to life or business, cooperation can take many forms such as partnerships, collaborations, or simply working together towards a common goal. On the other hand, competition drives us to be better, faster, and stronger. Oftentimes, business leaders prioritize competition, but what would happen if you approached business from a cooperative mindset instead? You might find that when you focus on cooperation instead of competition, it drives you to be better. It's what makes us stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones in both work AND life.

Cooperation is at the heart of innovation

Consider how balanced ecosystems thrive in nature. When all the elements work together, a powerful and resilient system is born. Plants and animals cooperate to create environments that can withstand changes and challenges. Human societies can also benefit from this type of cooperation, creating strong and diverse communities and cultures.

When we're young, we learn the value of cooperation, and that it’s the foundation for teamwork and essential for success in any field. We find that working together toward a common goal helps us to build strong relationships and teaches us how to work effectively with others. As we grow older, we continue to use the skills we learned to achieve our goals, and we become more competitive. With that said, we can be more successful when we unite our strengths – and be competitive together, not against each other!

Likewise, because many of us in tech have witnessed the benefits of collaboration, today’s IT world is rapidly evolving to be more open, cooperative, and software driven. A great example is open-source software. It’s built on a foundation of cooperation and allows developers to share ideas and work together to create powerful and resilient applications and platforms. Through collaboration, developers can pool their resources and expertise, which leads to faster innovation and better products.

Developers take note: opportunity awaits

With a cooperative mindset firmly at the center of digital transformation, I’m thrilled to say that Intel is making unprecedented changes in the software space. We’re working with our partners to accelerate software innovation through industry collaboration, co-engineering, and open-source contributions.

I know for many people, Intel is that invisible piece of hardware that makes it possible for computers to compute – it’s somewhere inside, and we don’t have to think about it. But truth be told, Intel technology is pretty important: we’ve been at the heart of computing breakthroughs for over 50 years, and we’ve earned a solid reputation for world-leading chip development and manufacturing along the way. But what you may not know is Intel hardware is designed to work together with Intel's software to provide the best experience for the end customer. This synergy is exactly what makes us unique today.

What’s more, we have nearly 20,000 software engineers building software within our walls, and we’re proving to be a software powerhouse. And, we do more than build our technology – Intel teams work with partners to create new business opportunities, drive customer success, and create global impact. For example, you can work directly with our experts to optimize and migrate applications and ensure data security. And, with our comprehensive hardware, software, and services, we can deliver exactly what you need to achieve your strategic business goals and help your customers do the same.

More reasons to engage with us

I can’t say enough how important collaboration is to us at Intel, and we’ve really put our money where our mouth is when it comes to software. For example:

Our recent acquisition of Granulate means faster optimization and better performance for applications and workloads. This is great news for developers who want to take advantage of these capabilities in their own applications!

Plus, our latest chipset offers unbeatable portability, which lets customers move seamlessly between clouds to take advantage of the best services available. It also accommodates on-premises, cloud-centric, and hybrid customer environments, meaning customers can operate in the environment that works best for them.

And, with Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX), developers can create isolated areas of execution in memory, called enclaves. These enclaves can store sensitive data and code, ensuring that it is inaccessible to other processes and users on the system. SGX is being used by developers in environments where data security is critical, such as finance and healthcare, to protect intellectual property, and to create secure virtual machines.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There were several announcements at Intel Innovation. I encourage you to see them for yourself.

Intel is open for business!

Our partners are the secret sauce when it comes to customer engagement – so it’s essential that we demonstrate trust. For example, our co-sell motions show our commitment and intention to continue working together long-term. We’re also seeing a great deal of potential in facilitating and enabling cross-functional relationships between developers, SIs, and ISV partners who may rely on each other to go to market together.  

We invite you to join the Intel Partner Alliance. Consider the possibilities of not just our hardware, but our software too, to create a solution that far exceeds your customers' expectations.