Industry Wireless software Website www.starfish.com Founders Philippe Kahn, Sonia Lee | Products TrueSync Founded 1994 | |
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Key people Philippe Kahn, Founder
Sonia Lee, Co-Founder
Mary Gregg Armstrong, CEO Headquarters Santa Cruz, California, United States Type of business 1998–2003: Subsidiary of Motorola; 2003–2006: Subsidiary of Pumatech, Inc. (Intellisync); 2006–2008: Subsidiary of Nokia | ||
Starfish Software was founded in 1994 by Philippe Kahn (and his wife Sonia Lee), as a spin-off from the Simplify business unit from Borland and Kahn's severance from Borland. It was located in Santa Cruz, California.
Starfish developed intellectual property for device synchronization, especially for wireless devices. TrueSync was the first over-the-air synchronization system. Starfish was acquired by Motorola for $325 million in 1998. The outspoken founding couple founded another company, LightSurf, in the same year, to develop mobile phone photograph technology.
In 2000, the company helped start the SyncML Initiative to standardize synchronization communication protocols. In March 2003, Starfish was acquired by Pumatech in San Jose, California, which was headed by turn-around CEO Woodson Hobbs. Pumatech later changed its name to Intellisync, and was acquired by Nokia in 2005.