Omar Khan, the Samsung CTO who was responsible for the rise of the GalTab and other Android-powered smartphones, is moving to Citibank to handle that company’s global digital banking initiatives. He will be replaced by Nick Dicarlo and Gavin Kim in “product and service spokesperson responsibilities for Samsung Mobile.”
Clearly this whole hardware thing didn’t work out for him.
These sorts of lateral moves aren’t unusual but for Khan to have led a fairly successful run of tablets and cellphones and then decide to roll over to a bank points to a bit of political infighting and potential disappointment at the GalTab line, especially as Samsung is fighting – and lobbing – lawsuits at Apple over “copyist” techniques by both giants.
Samsung is also facing intense pressure from HTC and, to a lesser extent, Motorola and their latest Android phones, while popular with a certain set, did not set the world alight like the Galaxy S.