Amazon E-Commerce Chief Valentine, Who Spent 19 Years At Microsoft, Is Stepping Down

Brian Valentine, senior vice president of Amazon's e-commerce platform, is retiring from the company next month, the blog Geekwire reported Friday.

Before joining Amazon in September 2006, Valentine spent 19 years at Microsoft as the senior vice president of Windows engineering, leaving a few months before the launch of Windows Vista. Before that, he spent four years as a software engineer at Intel.

While Valentine also led the successful Windows 2000 and Windows XP, he reportedly bore much of the blame for the delayed Windows Vista release.

[Related: Microsoft Partners In Uproar Over Cloud Sales Commission Cuts ]

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In August 2006, a month before Valentine left, Microsoft revealed plans to reassign him to a new role and appointed Microsoft Senior Vice President Jon DeVaan to lead Windows development. DeVaan left the company last month.

CRN's ShadowRAM column, in reporting Valentine's departure from Microsoft, said he was "known for being straightforward or in-your-face, depending on your point of view."

"Whatever others thought, his team loved him, and many are upset by how it happened: They didn't like the fact that it was oh-so-helpfully announced that Brian would be in another position post-Vista," CRN ShadowRAM reported at the time.

As Microsoft's CEO search nears the five-month mark, Geekwire noted that Valentine's name might come up in the rumor mill, but said he's not considered to be in the running for the job.

PUBLISHED JAN. 17, 2013