Updated 6:45T to include a response from .
It might be time to add Android’s Hugo Barra to the growing list of departures from . lThingsD reports that Barra, who currently serves at the vice president of product management for Android, is leaving to take on a new role at one of China’s high-profile hset manufacturers, Xiaomi.
Barra is the third executive to leave from the Android team, following Android co-founder Rubin’s sudden departure Android engineer an-Baptise Queru. It’s unclear what Barra’s next role will be at Xiaomi, but it’s likely he’ll have a major h in product development. Xiaomi produces high-end Android phones for the Chinese market.
The news comes from “sources in a position to know” lThingsD writes that Barra only recently sent in his resignation. It’ll be a difficult exit for , as Barra heads up all of ‘s Android product development.
A representative from responded to lThingsD with the following quote:
“ wish Hugo Barra the best. ’ll miss him at we’re excited that he is staying within the Android ecosystem.”
Android is quickly becoming a ship without a captain. Now that all of the division’s most prominent faces have departed, the future of Android is in flux. It remains to be seen how long Senior VSundar chai can continue to man both the Android Chrome OS teams before he is forced to abon one for the other or merge the two platforms.
th steadily unifying its services across operating systems, a merger between Chrome OS Android now, more than ever, seems unavoidable. And with Samsung eating up a majority of smartphone profits, while simultaneously trying to cut out of the picture as much as possible, it wouldn’t be crazy to think that Android could be folded into Chrome.
