Starfish Software

Starfish Software was founded in 1994 by Philippe Kahn and 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.