Microsoft may be a distant runner-up to iOS and Android in the smartphone race, and still lags Amazon EC2 in the cloud wars, but executives from the Windows Phone and Azure divisions aren’t hurting for respect. In the past week, senior Microsoft executives have joined disruptive challengers in the mobile and cloud markets, suggesting that Microsoft’s brainpower isn’t lacking, even if its market share is.
The first executive departure was Charlie Kindel, the former Microsoft executive who managed developer outreach for Windows Phone, who actually left Microsoft nearly two years ago but just now found his way to Amazon. While it’s still anyone’s guess as to what Kindel will be doing at Amazon – given his past role with Windows Phone, some are mooting the possibility that he will be helping build out an Amazon phone – this is becoming a bit of a habit for Windows Phone executives to leave for Amazon.
