Former Microsoft Windows Phone general manager, Charlie Kindel, looks set to return to his mobile roots, following the announcement that he has been hired by Amazon. Listing his his role as director of "something secret" on his LinkedIn profile, Kindel is wasting no time in his new role and is already courting mobile developers and testers, with the view to build "a new team going after a totally new area for Amazon."
"Building a new team going after a totally new area for Amazon."
Kindel's appointment will no doubt increase speculation that Amazon will soon launch its own smartphone. In his former role at Microsoft (which he left in 2011 to launch his own startup), Kindel worked closely with mobile developers and was instrumental in evangelizing the Windows Phone platform, skills that would undoubtedly help Amazon with a push into the handset market.
Kindel becomes the latest member of Microsoft's Windows Phone team to join Amazon. Last year, Brandon Watson, the former head of Windows Phone Developer Experience left Microsoft to became a director of Amazon's Kindle Cross Platform Team. Previously stating that Google had "already lost control of Android and [had] zero chance of regaining it," Kindel may prove his point if Amazon enjoys more success with its own forked versions of the software.