Gavin Kim, former Vice President of Consumer and Enterprise Services at Samsung, has left his post to join Microsoft’s Windows Phone team where his new title is “General Manager”. What exactly does that entail? According to the Boy Genius Report, who scored an exclusive interview with Kim, his exact words are:
“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. In my experience, there is an already fervent base of Windows Phone supporters out there and they all get it. They are passionate, and already very vocal about it … so, it is really my new job to make sure we reflect that message clearly in our product and marketing collaborations with all of our partners to create more Windows Phone believers. I see this as an amazing opportunity to work with industry talents like Andy Lees, Chris Capossela, Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore, Achim Berg, and others, to build on their incredible successes and continue to move the ball forward here in the US and globally. I anticipate I’m going to learn a lot from them, and I hope to equally contribute my experience back.
In other words, we have absolutely no idea what this guy will be doing during working hours. We suspect that he’ll be Samsung’s official liaison with Microsoft since the statement Samsung issues regarding his departure is rather upbeat:
“Gavin Kim has departed Samsung Mobile and we look forward to working with him in the future. In his new capacity, he will continue to be part of the larger Samsung family through our partnership with Microsoft.”
Whereas Microsoft had to inject one of their to take over Nokia, Samsung is inserting one of their guys into the belly of the beast to make sure that they have a say in the future of the Windows Phone platform. As much as it pains us to say this, Samsung has already outsold Nokia in terms of Windows Phones. The question is now how long will it take for Nokia to be the world’s largest Windows Phone vendor and how will their relationship with Microsoft impact other partners such as Samsung, HTC, LG, etc.?