Panos Panay, formerly the chief product officer at Microsoft (MSFT.O), will take over as head of the struggling unit at Amazon.com (AMZN.O) responsible for the company’s Alexa and Echo products.
Amazon announced on Wednesday that Panay will take on his new responsibilities beginning in October. Panay worked at Microsoft for over 19 years and was the head of the team that designed the Surface series of devices.
Dave Limp, an Amazon veteran who has declared his intention to step down later this year, will be replaced by him. Limp follows in the footsteps of several longstanding leaders at the division who departed the business the previous year.
Even though it is a relatively small division within Amazon’s vast empire, the device business has been symbolically significant because of its role as a testing ground for various electronic gadgets and the public face of Alexa through various voice-assistant devices.
Without offering specific numbers, Amazon has stated that its devices and services division does not generate a profit.
According to several employees from the hardware business whom Reuters contacted, morale inside the division has worsened as a result of personnel layoffs and a pipeline of gadgets that are now in development that the employees worry will not prove to be hit.
Panay has expertise in both the hardware industry as well as the integrated services industry. Most recently, Panay handled the introduction of the Windows 11 operating system.
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