J Allard, a f ounding member of Xbox, Windows NT and Internet Information Server at Microsoft, has joined Amazon as the Vice President of the company's Devices and Services team.

J Allard, one of the chief designers of the original Xbox, has joined Amazon, but it's too soon to say if he'll be working on anything related to video games.

Chief Technical Officer of the canceled Microsoft Courier project, and of the XBOX and Zune team J Allard is taking a leave of absence from Microsoft due to butting heads with CEO Steve Ballmer.

Allard is best known in gaming circles for his 20 years at Microsoft, where he co-founded Xbox and helped launch the original console and the Xbox 360, as well as Xbox Live and Xbox Live Arcade.