Samsung can’t be too pleased about this. Gavin Kim, the company’s VP of Consumer and Enterprise Services, has just announced that he will be leaving in order to join up with Microsoft as general manager of the Windows Phone team.
Kim has been with Samsung for several years, and was VP of Content Services before taking up his most current role. In a talk with BGR, Kim briefly outlined some of the new duties he’ll be picking once he and his family relocate to Seattle.
“I will be responsible to help set the future direction for the Windows Phone platform and to accelerate Microsoft’s trajectory to win the hearts and minds of consumers, carriers, device manufacturers, developers and partners,” said Kim.
Those are some lofty ambitions, and Mr. Kim will certainly have his work cut out for him. A recent Nielsen report pegs Windows Phone’s market share at a mere 7%, making it a distant fourth behind Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS.
Even so, that hasn’t stopped Kim from being bullish about Windows Phone Mango. He feels that Microsoft is “closing the gap rapidly and removing all doubt about their place in mobile.” He may well be right — AT&T has already begun to roll out a new line of Windows Phones in time for the holidays, and Nokia is poised to re-enter the U.S. smartphone market with a full portfolio of Windows Phones come next year. If Windows Phone is ever going to break away from the pack it has to move quickly, and Microsoft can’t afford to screw these next few months up.
Though I wish him well, I’ve got one bit of advice for Mr. Kim: be careful about what you tweet.