communications industry. He spent 20 years at IBM, eventually reaching the position of corporate vice president of technology. He also spent five years at Lucent, as president of research and advanced technologies at Bell Labs. And in January, he wrapped up a four-year stint as chief technology officer at Novell, a company struggling to find its role as a provider of open-source software for enterprises at a time when its leadership in networking software is long past.
Jaffe blogged frequently at Novell and will continue to do so at the W3C, according to today’s announcement. In an FAQ document circulated to the press by W3C, Jaffe says his three top priorities for the next year including deploying HTML 5, the newest version of the Web’s core markup language; setting up a faster, more streamlined way to update Web standards to keep pace with technological innovation; and finding new ways to fund the consortium’s activities. “The importance of the Web, and the pace of change demand that W3C scale, while preserving its core principles and also maintaining a strong business value to the members,” Jaffe said in the document. “I will be looking closely at innovations to the business model.”
Jaffe earned a BS in mathematics, an MS in electrical engineering, and a PhD in computer science from MIT, completing his academic work in 1979. In addition to his industry positions, he served on the Advisory Committee for the Presidential Commission for Critical Infrastructure Protection under President Bill Clinton, as well as the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications.
