New report claims former Surface head Panos Panay is jumping ship from Microsoft to Amazon

It didn't take long to find out where the now-former head of Windows and Surface at Microsoft will be working next. Panos Panay, who announced his departure from Microsoft today after working there for 19 years, is said to be heading over to one of his former company's biggest rivals, Amazon.

Bloomberg reports, via unnamed sources, that Panay will be taking over as head of Amazon's hardware division. He is said to be replacing Dave Limp, who has been the Senior Vice President of Devices and Services at Amazon since 2010. Limp announced in August he would step down from that role. So far, neither Panay nor Amazon have commented on Bloomberg's report.

If the story is accurate, it would certainly be an interesting change for Panay, who helped to lead the development of Microsoft's first Surface PC products in 2012. The Surface family, which first started out as tablets for Windows 8 and Windows RT, expanded to full laptops and all-in-one PCs over the past 12 years.

Panay's switch over to Amazon will have him lead a team that's best known for selling more affordable products than Microsoft's Surface devices, most of which are on the high end of prices. By contrast, products like Amazon's Fire tablets, Kindle Readers, and Echo smart speakers, have started out as affordable, and get discounted even more during sales events, like the upcoming Amazon Prime Big Deal Days on October 10-11.

It certainly will be interesting to see if Panay will continue to help create affordable tech gadgets, or if he will expand Amazon's hardware to more expensive and more full featured devices.

Amazon is scheduled to hold a hardware-focus press event on Wednesday, September 20 at its Northern Virginia headquarters. It's more that possible Panay could be there to offer up a preview of what he might come up with when he's fully in charge of the company's tech products.

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