Microsoft exec's defection adds to Amazon phone mystery

This may rate as one of the tech industry's worst-kept secrets, but another clue has surfaced to suggest that, yes, Amazon is indeed hard at work developing its own phone.

If you're keeping score, the latest data point concerns the job-hopping status of one Robert Williams, who used to be the top business development exec at Microsoft's Windows Phone division. Williams has now joined Amazon -- we know this thanks to Williams, who blabbed the news on his Twitter feed, complete with a tweak to his bio with this tease: "working on a top secret project called....oops, gotta go." (Good thing it's Amazon; at Apple, that's a crime punishable by death.)

We've contacted Amazon for comment and will update the post when we hear back. But the personnel move follows in the aftermath of a recent Bloomberg report that Amazon is working with Foxconn to build a device that would challenge the iPhone and Android-based phones. Separately, here's one more to toss in for today's tea leaf-reading ritual: The Wall Street Journal's s... [Read more]