Recently, Apple edged out Microsoft as the world’s most valuable tech company. How Apple did it — or, more accurately, how MS fell behind — holds five valuable lessons for any company that wants to stay competitive.

The answer isn’t as simple as “Apple makes better products,” which may be true. It’s more about the mistakes Microsoft has made — a list of “don’ts” that every company should take note of:

1. Don’t screw your business partners. Microsoft contracted with small, innovative companies to build applications for Windows, and then piggybacked on the innovations by releasing their own products that were directly competitive. Word (and we don’t mean MS Word) got around the industry that MS played dirty with its partners. So potential partners went elsewhere — like to Apple, for instance.
2. Don’t act like a bully, especially not with your customers. More and more people — and some government agencies — began seeing MS as a monopolistic bully that did whatever it wanted to keep the corporate wallet expanding. That got potential customers wondering whether the company cared more about controlling the market than about pleasing customers. Note to MS CEO Steve Ballmer: You have a problem when customers think they aren’t No. 1.
3. Don’t imitate when you should innovate. MS got a reputation for copying others (see #1); Apple got a reputation for innovation. Which company would you want to work for and do business with?
4. Don’t act bigger just because you are. MS grew. And grew. And grew. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it appears in doing so the company lost the fast-moving culture that’s Apple’s brand. The secret is to get big and think small (and agile). MS hasn’t heard the secret.
5. Don’t try to convince customers that complexity equals value. MS kept adding features onto existing products and forcing customers to spend more for additions they didn’t want. So here’s what ended up happening: The products got more complex and more expensive, but didn’t get better. And customers noticed.

(Adapted from “Top 10 Dumb Reasons Apple Beat Microsoft.”)