Well, as far as "personal reasons" go, we suppose a dumptruck of money is as good a motive as any. If you tuned in yesterday, you know that Apple Europe's general manager, Diego Piacentini, is resigning his post at the end of the quarter. Reports indicated that his decision to leave was due entirely to personal reasons, and had absolutely nothing to do with the recent slash-and-burn campaign that's made pink slips all the rage in Apple Europe these days. (Spin, spin.) Far be it from us to begrudge anyone a change of venues for personal reasons, but a departure coincident with Cupertino's apparent plan to reduce Apple Europe headcount by a significant level-- well, it seems a bit overly convenient, doesn't it?

It all comes clear, now; faithful viewer Drake Winters clued us in on the scoop posted over at AppleInsider. It appears that Diego managed to land himself an offer from Amazon.com. Given Amazon's role as King of the E-tailers, we imagine the offer was an attractive one. ("So, Mr. Piacentini... shall we dump the huge piles of cash on your front lawn, or would you prefer it in your driveway instead?") A further clue that Amazon really wants Diego on the team is the report that the company is including a "complete relocation of Piacentini and his family from Europe to Seattle" in the offer. Holy Expatriate, Batman! Guess that truckload of cash will have green dead presidents on it instead of brightly-colored images of royalty. Hopefully Diego specified higher denominations, because the enormous Andrew Jackson head on the new twenty has been proven to cause horrific nightmares in children and adults alike.

So, more power to Diego; if you're the general manager of a company division that's seeing massive layoffs from above and you get a generous offer from a dotcom megagiant rife with cash, heck, you take it. Good luck to Diego and his family on their new adventure, and here's hoping that Apple finds a suitable replacement to man the guns in Europe. It'd be a shame to see the recent sales growth over there give way to a management shake-up.