Just after the company announced a
$1.2 billion deal for Norway's Fast Search & Transfer ASA, Microsoft Corp.'s vice president of corporate development, Bruce Jaffe, said he's leaving the firm at the end of February. Jaffe, who has a 12-year tenure at the firm, has seen the company through 20
acquisitions during the last two years - a pace nearly matching that of the late 1990s as the tech giants square off with each other. Microsoft is hoping that enterprise search specialist Fast Search will help in the multifront battle with Google Inc., which bested it last year on the DoubleClick deal.
In 2000, a year after Microsoft formed its corp dev office, Jaffe became general manager of Microsoft corp dev, responsible for managing investments, corporate alliances and acquisitions in the consumer related divisions, including MSN, MSNBC, WebTV, Xbox, Microsoft Games and other initiatives.
Our partner blog Tech Con notes that Jaffe may be founding his own startup. Meanwhile, the Microsoft corporate development team is hiring. Take a look. -Baz Hiralal
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