Is it a utility?
An article about Microsoft's recent CEO change looks closely at the power of share value.

Over the last few years, a lot of big investors and analysts have expressed frustration with Ballmer, citing the company's flat stock price for the last 13 years.

Of course flat stock price is NOT Microsoft's real problem in recent years. The real problem is that they've been whoring after all sorts of products and services that they DON'T know how to produce, while totally neglecting the utility software that they USED TO know how to produce.

You could argue that a nearly universal utility like Windows needs to be firmed up by regulation, just like water or electric systems. Most business depends on MS software, and a large part of government activity depends on Excel and the Office suite, if not the whole OS.

A similar argument prevailed in an opposite situation in 1943, illustrating how the role of share value has turned the world upside down. Ford was a family-owned company. Henry Ford had lost his faculties after a series of strokes, but son Edsel had never been strong enough to depose the father, and died in '43 from stress and alcohol. The company was rudderless at a time when the government needed a strong and efficient maker of guns and trucks. The government ordered grandson Henry II to leave the Army and take over the company, and gave him the resources to force out the old man's power structure.

Before 1980, share-driven corporations were generally stronger because profit was the main motive. Outside investors who were dissatisfied with low dividends could reshape or overthrow bad management. Family-held companies were weaker because they had no defense against a senile or incompetent patriarch.

After 1980 (specifically, after Jack Welch) the situation is reversed. Closely-held companies are now stronger because they are more likely to use profit as the control variable, thus more likely to serve the needs of actual customers. Share-held companies are weaker because outside forces want criminal activity, not profit.
  ¶ 3:10 AM