Former Apple VP joins Board at Parallels

Former vice president of Apple and head of Apple's Mac OS software team Bertrand Serlet, has joined the senior board of directors at Parallels.

Serlet, often called the father of Apple’s Mac OS X, left the company in March 2011 to "focus less on products and more on science". He was replaced by Craig Federighi, the former VP of Software Engineering. 

Now, he has been appointed to the board of directors at virtualization software company Parallels. The former VP joined late co-founder Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1989, working on the early incarnation of OS X -- NeXTSTEP -- before moving on to OpenStep and WebObjects. The former VP also holds a doctorate in computer science.

At Parallels he will be a non-executive director. Parallels CEO Birger Steen called him "the rare combination of a software visionary and master of execution," in a statement released Tuesday.

Commenting on the move, Serlet said:

"With Parallels Desktop, Parallels became a critical developer for the Mac platform, and I got to know and appreciate the Parallels leadership team. I also discovered Parallels deep involvement with the cloud, represented by its rich portfolio of products. I look forward to drawing on my career at Apple to help guide Parallels as it continues on its impressive growth trajectory."

Founded in 1999, Parallels is well-known for its virtualization software that allows Mac users to run Windows and other operating systems on their machines. Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Almaz Capital Partners are among the company's investors.

Reports released earlier this year suggested Serlet was building a cloud OS startup "Upthere" in Palo Alto with other former Apple employees.