The man who may be Microsoft's next chief executive says the surveillance system has to be reformed after NSA revelations

One of the frontrunners to be Microsoft's next chief executive has said that it is the responsibility of governments to restore people's trust in technology following this year's revelations of NSA surveillance.

"Businesses and users are going to use technology only if they can trust it," said Satya Nadella, executive vice president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, speaking at the Le Web conference in Paris on Tuesday.

"Clearly now it's the responsibility, I think, of governments – the US government included – to restore that trust. The only mechanisms that I think we have learned is that the respect for the liberties of people and the rule of law is the one way to have societies thrive."

As an increasingly strong frontrunner to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft chief executive, Nadella's words carry weight. Microsoft was one of eight technology companies to publish an open letter to president Barack Obama and the US Congress on Monday demanding changes to surveillance laws.

"The surveillance system has to be reformed, and the best way to reform it is to have laws govern it that respect individual privacy, both for the citizens of the united states and the citizens of the world. That's the stance we have taken, and we are going to actively push for that."

Nadella has worked at Microsoft since 1992, with roles including heading the company's server and tools division, and leading its efforts to develop search engine Bing into a credible alternative to Google.

Nadella deflected questions about whether he is in the running to be the next chief executive and insisted he is focused on his current role. "It's a great time to be at Microsoft for what we are doing, and day-to-day it's about getting focused on what I'm doing, and I'm excited to be doing that," he said. "There is no news!"

Most of Nadella's appearance at Le Web, where he was interviewed on-stage by journalist Om Malik, focused on Microsoft's prospects. Unsurprisingly, he painted a bullish picture of the company's continued relevance into the next decade, whoever its leader is.

"It's all about what we do going forward, versus what we have done. At some level our reputation is both great, and really reflective of the work we've done in the past. We've had great successes with Windows, and with Office. It's just a question of what we do next," he said.

Satya Nadella at Le Web. Photograph: Stuart Dredge/The Guardian

Nadella talked about the importance of the cloud and enterprise technologies, but notably also talked up the significance of Microsoft's Xbox One console – a month after Bloomberg claimed that a rival candidate for the CEO role, Stephen Elop, might consider selling its Xbox business.

"From Xbox in the previous generation to Xbox One it's fundamentally transformed," said Nadella, before praising one of the new console's racing games' asynchronous multiplayer feature. "It's learning how you race, it creates a digital avatar that then on behalf of you races with others, and you get points for it... Having this ambient intelligence that's powering every experience is what we will see though in the next 10 years."

Nadella also talked up the importance of changes in user interface – including touchscreens and voice control – as being the key to consumer technology evolution over the next decade, with Microsoft determined not to be an also-ran against competition from Apple, Google and others.

"I think that's going to be the next revolution. We have our shot at it like anybody else, and we're going to go strong," he said, while accepting that Microsoft's internal culture will need to adapt to take advantage of these technological shifts.

"We would not be here still [nearly] 40 years from our founding if we were not able to ride the waves of technology," he said. "We have the capability that allows us to go and hunt for the new concepts. That's the key to this business, and longevity... Any successful small company becomes a big company by definition. You have to be able to deal with scale in meaningful ways."

Nadella talked up Microsoft's enterprise business too, suggesting that Office 365 is "as far as I can tell the most ubiquitous SaaS [Software as a Service] in the enterprise today" while adding that "Office 365 is on a tear for us, it's doing very well", while Microsoft's cloud platform Windows Azure is a viable competitor to Amazon's cloud services.

"Amazon definitely had an early start, but I would say we're the guys who are giving them a run," he said, before outlining the criteria by which he will judge his own performance – and by extension Microsoft – in the coming years, although Nadella declined Malik's invitation to give himself a score for how well it has coped so far.

"It would be hubris to say you're anything other than above average, because you always have room for improvement," he said, before suggesting that Microsoft's enterprise division should be judged on whether it is able to find growth from new areas, rather than just its established products and services.

"If you believe that the total IT spend is going to perhaps come in new forms – what I would call new IT, and let's call it [the other] existing IT. There will always be compression in existing, and there will always be expansion in new. And for any vendor to be successful they have to participate in that expansion, versus just the compression," he said.

"If you don't have a real stake in the new, then just surviving on the old – even if it is about efficiency – I don't think is a long-term game."

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