Amazon Reportedly Restructures Hardware-Development Unit

Amazon.com is reportedly shaking up the management of its Lab126, its hardware-development group in Sunnyvale, Calif.

According to a report on Fast Company’s website, Malachy Moynihan, the vice president of digital products who led the development of the Fire TV and Echo voice-controlled speaker projects, left “to pursue an outside opportunity” several months ago. Moynihan joined Amazon in 2012 after serving as vice president of emerging video products at Cisco Systems.

Last month, Jon McCormack, the vice president of Kindle Software at Lab126, left for a job as vice president of engineering at Yahoo.

And Ian Freed, the vice president of Amazon Devices, who is based in Seattle and works closely with Lab126, is on sabbatical, according to the Fast Company article.

Fast Company cited the failure of the Fire Phone as one reason for the changes, as well as a “bloated” organizational structure at the unit, which has grown to employ more than 3,000 workers. Amazon declined to comment on any changes at Lab126.

According to the article, David Foster, who led hardware development for the Kindle Voyage and Paperwhite devices and the Amazon Dash wand-like device that lets customers scan bar codes in their homes to add products to their shopping carts, now oversees Lab126’s advanced-technologies group. And engineering vice president Lindo St. Angel now runs the group charged with shipping and developing existing products at Lab126.

This article appeared in print in the January 6th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.