The rumours show no sign of going away. Amazon, it seems, could be working on a “Kindle Flame” phone. Way back in February we spotted that Brandon Watson had left the Windows Phone team to join Amazon. More recently Windows Phone business development boss Robert Williams left and joined Amazon, telling people that he was working on a “top secret project”. Rumours have since circulated that Amazon is working with Foxconn to build a new handset.
Now it looks like Andy Vanosdale has left Microsoft to work for Amazon. Andy worked heavily with the email experience on Windows Phone and, although his Twitter profile still shows an official-looking Microsoft picture, he’s now a Software Developer at Amazon. He appears to have jumped ship on June 23rd.
There’s several rumours surrounding the upcoming Amazon handset(s), but we should perhaps instead look at reasons why high-profile Microsoft staff are leaving the Windows Phone team and jumping to Amazon. Are Amazon paying more or does it have something to do with Windows Phone itself? A recent survey by IDC and Appcelerator seems to suggest that developers are losing interest in Windows Phone, although WIndows 8 and Windows RT..
For most mobile app developers, it is believed to be much easier to port from one ARM-based operating system (like iOS or Android) to another ARM-based operating system (like Windows RT), and significantly more complex to port from an ARM-based OS to an x86-based OS implementation like Windows 8.
Developers are also very clear on what they need to help them port from ARM-based devices to x86-based devices: the ability to provide consistent app user experiences and to efficiently re-use code.