Is it a perfect coincidence that a guy with the name Charlie Kindel would be the man to head up a new project at Amazon? This isn’t just any project: it is widely believed that ex-Windows Phone boss Charlie Kindel has now been hired by Amazon to work on the long-rumored Kindle smartphone.
Charlie Kindel not only has the name, but he also has the qualifications. Kindel was Microsoft Windows Phone General Manager until 2011, when he left Microsoft to join a startup. Amazon must have made a sweet deal to get Kindel on board to oversee the Kindle smartphone. Kindel updated his Linkedin profile with this new entry a few days ago:
“I’m building a new team going after a totally new area for Amazon. I’m hiring cloud and mobile developers and testers, program managers, and product managers," he writes on his LinkedIn profile, which describes the position as director of “something secret.”
Kindel followed up with an April Fool’s post that Amazon had hired him to be head of the “Amazon Kindle Charlie” home server initiative, but confirmed to Geekwire that he has left his startup to work at Amazon. He told the site:
“Amazon presented an opportunity to build something new that has ginormous potential. I simply couldn’t pass the opportunity up. As a double bonus, the idea that I can work in such a principled and customer focused company is really exciting to me.”
He could not actually speak about the secret project he’s working on, but it would be a pretty safe bet that Kindel is working on the Kindle smartphone, and rightfully so. He has the qualifications for the job, and also the added bonus that the product he’s most likely working on has a very personal ring to it for him.
