At the time, Microsoft was widely seen as a bully. People who know Mr. Smith said that changing the company's legal stance in the antitrust case, as well as later legal stances the company has taken, helped soften the company's public image. Microsoft's repeated stumbles with important products have also made the company seem less fearsome. After the Snowden disclosures, Mr. Smith pursued an industrywide effort to limit the damage. In July of last year, Mr. Smith picked up the phone and called his counterpart at Google, Kent Walker, to explore whether the companies could gain strength by working together on a settlement with the government on data collection. The overture was remarkable considering Microsoft and Google are ferocious business competitors, and Microsoft has denounced Google's privacy practices through its "Scroogled" advertising campaign. But the two companies put aside their hostilities and, in January, they and other technology companies reached a deal with the Obama administration.