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Window Phone developer guru Brandon Watson joins Amazon Kindle team

Brandon Watson, a major player in the resurrection of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, specifically in his work with developers, has taken a job with Amazon. Watson confirmed his departure Friday on Twitter, and ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley tracked down that he'll be director of the Kindle Cross-Platform Team. Foley says that makes him responsible for for all of the first- and third-party Kindle apps, which would include Android's own Amazon Kindle application.

Said Watson:

The rumors are true. The team is in great hands. I'll miss working on #wpdev. I will [miss] the community, but won't be a stranger.

With a high-profile name like Watson, who was one of Microsoft's biggest cheerleaders for the revived Windows Phone platform (and a hell of a nice dude — I've met him a couple times), you can't help but wonder what else Amazon has up its sleeve. Amazon's running what is believe to be the most successful forked version of Android with its Kindle Fire e-reader/tablet, along with its wildly successful Amazon Appstore. And now Amazon's picked up some serious Microsoft talent. 

No doubt that if anyone has the traditional manufacturers looking over their shoulders a little bit, especially in the tablet space, it's Amazon. On the other hand, while the Kindle family (and Kindle Fire in particular) may be moving a bunch of units — up 177 percent over last year — maybe they looked at Amazon's profit and shrugged. Either way, things are getting interesting.

Source: @brandonwatson, ZDNet; via WPCentral

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