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Windows Phone has struggled to differentiate itself in the market against established rivals such as Android and iOS, but through it all Brandon Watson was the developer evangelist making sure a lack of apps was never the reason people opted for the competition. His commitment to platform has helped to inspire app development beyond Redmond’s wildest expectations, however ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley has just confirmed that Brandon is moving on, and being tasked with leading Amazon’s cross-platform Kindle efforts.
So far Microsoft hasn’t named any successor for Watson, and did little more than confirm his departure. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “We can confirm February 6th is Brandon Watson’s last day at Microsoft. Brandon did a great job helping us build a vibrant developer community and we wish him well with his next adventure.”
Watson’s departure isn’t the first, and likely won’t be the last important loss to the Windows Phone team, but its still a mighty blow to a platform that is in desperate need of passionate community leaders.
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dentaku
February 05, 2012 at 4:34pm
While everyone seems to like Brandon and shifting employees around to fill holes in the organization is not great, he described himself as "Entrepreneur on loan to Microsoft focused on getting our developer mojo back." So it looks like it wasn't really a long term job anyway.
I wonder if Ben the PC Guy will now become Ben the Windows Phone Guy?
