Amazon.com Inc. has made an impact move by hiring Panos Panay, chief product officer at Microsoft Corp, a company in which he has held strategic roles for almost 20 years. According to Bloomberg, the ideologue of the Microsoft Surface product line and the Windows 11 operating system will join Jeff Bezos’ company to lead the division in charge of the Alexa voice assistant and Echo smart speakers. This change comes shortly after the announcement of the retirement of a key Amazon figure: Dave Limp, vice president of hardware for the last 14 years. Panay announced his resignation from his position at Microsoft a couple of days ago via an internal email.
This movement occurs at a crucial moment for both companies, in the midst of a battle to position themselves as a reference in the field of artificial intelligence. Additionally, Amazon is preparing to hold its annual new device event at its Arlington, Virginia, campus next Wednesday; Microsoft, for its part, will hold the special Surface and AI event on September 21.
Panos Panay was a key executive at Microsoft, especially under the leadership of Satya Nadella. He has been responsible for the development of products such as Windows 11 and the successful line of Surface computers. He informed of his resignation from the company through an internal Microsoft email and subsequently announced his decision through social networks.
The company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen has appointed Yusuf Mehdi, until now the company’s marketing manager, as his successor. It should be remembered that in recent months Microsoft has reduced efforts in the Surface operations division, laying off part of the staff and withdrawing several sales products from the market.
For its part, Amazon has had a difficult year, in part due to slow growth in sales of its virtual assistance devices. The Alexa smart speaker has not established itself as a key element in homes, as the company expected. At the end of last year, some internal reports described the Alexa business as a colossal failure: the company believed that it would be used to make purchases in its e-commerce store, but reality has shown that the majority of users only use Alexa to play music. . As a result, the company laid off many workers and canceled some projects.
This move by Panay is the latest in a series of top executive swaps between Amazon and Microsoft in recent years. An example is what happened in 2021 when the technology company hired Charlie Bell, a senior cloud executive at the online commerce giant. At that time the possibility of a lawsuit was raised, since Bell had signed an agreement prohibiting him from joining a rival.
However, both companies reached an agreement and, in addition, Microsoft eliminated the non-compete clauses in its new employment agreements. That is why changes have occurred among companies in the sector.
Last Monday, Microsoft’s vice president of experience and devices, Rajesh Jha, sent an email to company employees informing them of Panay’s resignation. In that message, Jha thanked the creator of Microsoft Surface for the work done and invited employees to join him in wishing him the best.
“Panos has had an incredible impact on our products and culture, as well as the broader device ecosystem,” he said. “He will be missed and I am personally very grateful for his many contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him the best,” he added.
Jha capped off the email by detailing strategic changes that “will go into effect immediately with Panos assisting in the transition.” He assured that the company’s commitment “to Surface and MR remains unchanged”, and highlighted those responsible for each function in this new strategic diversification. Mikhail Parakhin for example will lead and build a new Windows and web experiences team, while Yusuf Mehdi will take on responsibility for leading the Windows and Surface businesses with our OEM and retail partners.
