Bertrand Serlet (Apple)
Apple today announced that Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will be departing the company in order to "focus less on products and more on science", although his specific destination remains unknown. Serlet joined Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1989, and transitioned to Apple in 1997 when NeXT was acquired and Jobs brought back to lead Apple.
"I've worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering.
Craig Federighi demoing Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Reuters)
Serlet will be replaced by Craig Federighi, currently Apple's vice president of Mac Software Engineering and who has led Mac OS X engineering for the past two years. Federighi is another former NeXT and Apple employee who spent ten years at Ariba before returning to Apple in 2009. Serlet notes that the transition should be seamless given Federighi's role in leading the current Mac OS X team.
"Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless."
Serlet has occasionally appeared at Apple keynote and media events over the years to introduce Mac OS X-related features, and thus well known to longtime Apple followers. Federighi has made a couple of on-stage appearances since his return to Apple, demoing Mac OS X Snow Leopard at WWDC 2009 and showing off some of the features of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X Lion at last October's "Back to the Mac" event.
