According to a veteran IT venture capitalist and current Web 2.0 investor, the Web 2.0 phenomenon is producing changes in the job description for "business development" Fred says:
But the job of a business development executive is changing. You have to be more product focused, more technical, and focus on making deals where there is already user level integration happening.
In a previous post, Fred described how the public api’s published by Web 2.0 companies not only allow them to effectively partner without all the overhead of a business/legal deal, but also to do so much more quickly. Nevertheless, as a commenter on that post observed:
The BD guy has always been the guy who sees how two companies can play together. Today’s smart (good) BD guy simply works more with his in-house API guru and less with his Rolodex.