back to article Mac OS X daddy quits Apple

Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac software engineering and the man who played a lead role in the development of Mac OS X, is leaving the company. Serlet worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer, and he spent four years at the famed Xerox PARC research laboratory in Silicon Valley. “I’ve worked with Steve for …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Thomas 4
    Pint

    So long...

    ...and thanks for all the cats.

  2. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Oops, I read it as...

    “I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had enough!"

  3. Doug Glass
    Go

    Rats,

    sinking ship.

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      LOL

      One person moves on at Apple and it's the sign of something bad?

      How about all the high profile resignations at Microsoft?

      Ray Ozzie, Stephen Elop, Robbie Bach and J Allard leave and that's okay is it?

      1. bazza Silver badge

        Not just one person

        There was talk a while back that Jon Ives (he of iDesign fame) would be leaving too. Impressive though St. Jobs is, he can't do it all himself. If too many of the important people leave then that might mean Apple have a serious recruitement problem. The share markets get all worried about Jobs' health, but really it's the other people in the company that matter most.

        I don't think that anything about internal Apple politics can be reliably inferred from news such as this. People do move on all the time - fact of life. Sooner or later we all get itchy feet and want a change, and there's nothing special about the fruit themed toy factory that says otherwise.

        1. Eponymous Howard
          FAIL

          "There was talk"

          But no actual evidence...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Tin Hat

    Or not happy about Lion turning OSX into iOS?

    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      Jobs Horns

      ^this

      Merely conjecture, no doubt. Who knows, really, apart from your man....

      But consider : "...at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,"

      But it matters little. I am not buying *any* more Apple (or Sony) products. One has to take a stand sometime. And I am no ignorant Apple detractor, I'll have you know. This is actually being typed on one of my macs.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      ... and Server being turned into a toy.

      Once you've exhausted all the different screen wipe transitions for a shiny single-tasking locked-down OS I purpose there's little technical challenge left.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        FAIL

        Damn T9

        Not purpose, suppose.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Why aren't Cisco furious ?

    One thing that has me puzzled is why Cisco, who have had an operating system called IOS for donkey's years, haven't raked Apple over the coals for trademark infringement, you can bet that Apple would if the situation was reversed.

    Anyone ??

    1. Mister Cheese
      Black Helicopters

      why else?

      http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco_and_apple_agreement_on_ios_trademark/

      ...and by 'license' I suspect they mean for a little bit more than 2 shillings and ninepence.

    2. VeganVegan

      Because they had a licensing agreement

      http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco_and_apple_agreement_on_ios_trademark/

  6. A handle is required
    Joke

    So where does the title go again?

    "...I want to focus less on products and more on science..."

    You mean the science of getting the largest Apple icon possible on a product isn't what you hoped for?

  7. Oliver Munyaradzi

    Cisco IOS

    As I understand it, Apple has an agreement with Cisco allowing it to use iOS. I don't know the specifics (whether/how much money changed hands).

  8. Martin Owens
    IT Angle

    Ah Science

    Let's be honest, there's more science on a Friday afternoon in a key stage 2 classroom than in any proprietary software company. The very definition of peer review is the preserve of open source; which I believe Apple aren't so hot on. No peer review, no openness, no transparency, no science. QED

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Did you read the same article?

      "but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,”"

      Seems clear that he wants to leave Apple exactly to research more academic endeavours. So I don't get the point of your comment, is it just a badly constructed dig at Apple?

      Btw Apple does do open source: the core OS (which feeds back to FreeBSD), the widely used Webkit, and others. See http://www.opensource.apple.com/

    2. Hungry Sean
      Thumb Down

      alright troll, I'll bite

      I suppose the development of the transistor, integrated circuit, the ongoing research into semiconductor physics, and speech recognition to name a few had no scientific basis because largely they were carried out by companies such as Bell Telephone, TI, and BBN? Good to know that the vast majority of readers on the reg have no grounding in science because of our employers' decisions about licensing issues.

      And, even though I don't personally think that broad publication is a requirement for applying the scientific method, many discoveries made at private corporations are published both in academic journals and patent filings. In fact, I suspect there are far more publications coming from companies that are predominantly closed than open source shops, largely because such companies are bigger and can afford more research staff.

  9. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @LOL

    I don't think those people were leaving a sinking ship so much as floating up from the wreckage

    Except Elop - he was sent to sink a different ship

  10. E 2

    "Apple didn't say where Serlet planned to work next."

    But you can bet all of your iThings that if Jobs suspects Serlet might pose the slightest competition to Apple, a law suit will be laid.

    1. maclovinz

      Uhmm, yeah....

      ....it's called a "Non-compete Agreement".

      Welcome to Business 101. Please take your seats.

  11. kain preacher

    @ Uhmm, yeah

    "...it's called a "Non-compete Agreement".

    Welcome to Business 101. Please take your seats."

    But lets first have a geography and law lessons. He is in California . In California non compete clause are not valid .

    1. maclovinz

      True. Unless...

      ...you're an equity stakeholder of a business.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like