Charlie Kindel, General Manager of the Windows Phone Developer Ecosystem, has announced his departure this morning from Microsoft after an astonishing 21 years with the company to start his own business. Playing a major role in Microsoft's conversion from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone and getting that system to its current state, Kindel is wanting to try his hand at a new challenge and is grabbing the opportunity.
For those of you who don't know, Charlie Kindel has had quite the career at Microsoft. A few of his accomplishments are listed below and they're nothing but amazing:
- Founded Premier support
- Built ActiveX and DCOM
- Shipped Internet Explorer 3.0
- Drove the development of the home networking features in Windows XP
- Founded eHome and shipped the first version of Windows Media Center
- Drove the invention of Windows Smart Displays and Windows Media Center Extenders
- Served Bob Muglia as executive technical assistant as he ran the Enterprise Storage business through to him running the Server and Tools Division.
- Was the driving force behind Windows Home Server.
- Led the design and development of the Windows Phone 7 Application Platform.
- Drove the Windows Phone 7 application platform ecosystem development and evangelism effort.
Needless to say, his enthusiasm and contributions from Microsoft and Windows Phone will be greatly missed. Kindel is one of those people though who's always looking for a new adventure and his new company, focusing on "advertising, mobile, cloud computing, and youth athletics" will surely keep him busy and in the forefront of new media. He'll remain in the Seattle area with his family as he pushes forward with his new endevour.
By the way, if you don't follow Kindel on Twitter, you can find him here. We highly recommend following him too as he is quite the personality: guns, technology, photography, cars, you name, he does it.
From everyone here at WPCentral, good luck Charlie and thanks for all that you've done! Check out a great video interview with the man after the break...
