You may term this purely coincidental or intentionally strategic. Google, which has a huge hardware-focused launch event just hours way, has made a major move in the hardware space. The company has now appointed David Foster — the man who helped Amazon design and bring out its Kindle lineup, as the VP of its hardware business.
The announcement, which is yet to go official, first came to light via a report from The Information. The report further states that Foster would lead hardware development for Google’s new branded line of smartphones — speculated to be dubbed ‘Pixel’ and sure to roll out today.
The position hadn’t previously been filled, the company said. Foster’s hiring reflects Google’s push into new hardware items, which will be highlighted on Tuesday when Google unveils several new hardware products. These are expected to include new phones that were designed solely by Google.
Amazon however, isn’t the only place where Foster has overseen design and development of Hardware products. David Foster has previously worked as a senior director at one of world’s most admired tech brands, at least when to comes to hardware — Apple’s. Prior to that, he was the CTO at the awesom Gibson Guitar. He has also been the GM of Microsoft’s hardware division and till recently, was VP of hardware engineering at Amazon.
At Amazon, Foster has been a fiver year long employee, with his most recent job — according to his LinkedIn profile — being leading device development teams at Amazon’s Lab126, including the Echo and Dash products. Amazon is yet to comment on the matter. We have reached out to the company and will update the story as soon as we hear back.
Foster comes to Google at just the right time. Google, with its hugely anticipated launch event tonight, is expected to brush aside the not-so-good-hardware-maker tag. While it has had a successful Nexus lineup, they weren’t manufactured by the company per se. Moreover, with the selling of Motorola to Lenovo, the company lost a huge hardware opportunity, which must be hurting more considering the kind of growth and fanboyism Moto phones have seen lately.
Foster will report to Rick Osterloh, a former Motorola executive who is in charge of Google’s hardware projects.
