Windows Phone head leaves Microsoft...

Microsoft's Windows Phone division has yet another high end defection to deal with.ZDnet reports that Brandon Watson, the head of Developer experiences for Windows Phone, has announced he is leaving Microsoft. Watson is heading over to Amazon where the report says he will become the director of the Cross Platform team for Amazon's Kindle division.

In an email, Watson said, " ... it was a hard decision, but the opportunity placed in front of me that was too big to pass up." There's no word on who will be replacing Watson as the leader of Windows Phone developer experiences.
This is just the latest major executive departure for Microsoft's Windows Phone division. In December the president of the division, Andy Lees, left that position for a rather vague role at Microsoft that seems to involve both Windows Phone and Windows 8. Terry Myerson took over his duties. Matt Bencke, the general manager for Windows Phone's Developer and Marketplace team, was also moved to a new job in the Xbox Live division in December.
With the recent launch of Nokia's Windows Phone-based devices, it looks like Microsoft will have a lot of new faces in the division that will help to steer Windows Phone development in 2012. It should be a critical year for the business, especially as information about Windows Phone 8, the next major update to the OS, starts to leak out.