Philippe Kahn - Biography

Philippe Kahn is a technology innovator and entrepreneur, who is credited with creating the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks. Kahn's first publicly shared picture is unique in that no other teams making the claim have any pictures. Kahn shot the first camera phone photo of his newborn daughter on June 11th, 1997. At the 1197 conference, named after the birthdate of the first camera phone picture, Philippe shared his inspiration for creating the camera phone. "It's about communicating," said Philippe Kahn, "Instant sharing is what drove us to create the camera phone. That was the beauty of it."

Kahn has founded four successful technology companies: His current company, Fullpower Technologies, of which he is CEO, Starfish Software, LightSurf Technologies, Borland. Fullpower provides solutions converging life sciences, wireless technology, sensing such as accelerometrics, nanotechnology and MotionX solutions. MotionX is the core technology that powers the Jawbone UP Band and the Nike+ GPS solutions.

Education

Kahn was educated in mathematics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute), and University of Nice, France. Kahn received a masters in mathematics. He also majored in musicology and classical flute at the Zurich Music Conservatory in Switzerland. As a student, Kahn developed the software for the MICRAL, the earliest non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor. The MICRAL is now credited by the Computer History Museum as the first ever microprocessor-based personal computer.

Personal Life

Kahn is married to Sonia Lee, who co-founded Fullpower Technologies, LightSurf and Starfish Software. They have a daughter Sophie whose memorable camera-phone first pictures dates her birth to June 11th, 1997. Kahn has three other children from a prior marriage. Together, Lee and Kahn run an environmental charity, the Lee-Kahn Foundation. Kahn is pasionate about classical music and contemporary Jazz. He says that he practices the flute daily. Furthermore he is competitive in small sailboat racing and leads his sailing team Pegasus Racing which focuses on sailing small high performance sailboats.

Technology

Kahn has founded four software companies: Borland, Starfish Software (acquired by Motorola in 1998), LightSurf Technologies (acquired by VeriSign in 2005) and recently Fullpower Technologies, founded in 2003.

Fullpower Technologies (2003-Present)

Fullpower, founded in 2003 and focused on the convergence of life sciences, wireless technology, accelerometrics, nanotechnology and Microelectromechanical systems, is well known for its MotionX Technology Platform.

First introduced publicly with the launch of Apple's App Store in July 2008, the MotionX Technology Platform provides the underlying technology for the leading Navigation and Fitness Applications on the App Store. These include:

• MotionX-GPS for the iPhone, the universal outdoors sports and navigation GPS solution launched in October 2008.

• MotionX-GPS Drive for the iPhone, the leading door-to-door pedestrian and driving navigation application launched in September 2009.

• MotionX-GPS HD and MotionX-GPS Drive HD, MotionX's Navigation solutions optimized for the iPad, launched in May 2010.

• Nike+ GPS, launched in September 2010, the leading fitness application on the iPhone and iPod Touch. MotionX provides the underlying technology for the Nike+ GPS Application. "We took great care in evaluating sensing technologies and found the MotionX Technology Platform to be superior," said Stefan Olander, Vice President of Digital Sport at Nike.

As of May 2010, Fullpower announced over 5 million MotionX users worldwide. Fullpower's MotionX Technology Platform has applications in renewable energy, mobile devices, wearable devices, imaging, sports, gaming, life-sciences, logistics and security solutions.

In September 2011 the Jawbone-UP band, powered by MotionX technology, was announced.

LightSurf Technologies (1997-2005)

Kahn is credited with creating the camera phone in 1997. Others claim the camera phone was a prior invention. However Kahn's picture of the birth of his daughter is the only camera-phone record. There were several digital cameras with cellular phone transmission capability shown by companies such as Kodak, Olympus in the early 1990s but none worked on public cellular networks. There was also a digital camera with cellular phone designed by Shosaku Kawashima of Canon in Japan in May 1997.

The camera phone became the founding vision of LightSurf.

The impetus for this invention was the birth of Kahn's child, Sophie. He was so excited and wanted to show off pictures so he jury-rigged a cell phone with a digital camera and sent off photos in real time. In a recent NPR interview, Kahn discusses the social impact of the camera phone. In another article with Slate.com, Kahn discusses the invention of the camera phone and its uses today. LightSurf built the first end-to-end solution for picture messaging. LightSurf technology powers the offerings of Sprint, Verizon and many other leading carriers in the world. LightSurf is now owned by VeriSign, who acquired the company in 2005 for $315 million as it was filing its IPO. The camera phone is arguably one of the most successful consumer electronic devices of all time with more than 2 billion camera-phones in use by 2010. Work on the camera phone infrastructure started in 1997. In Japan J-phone used the blueprint architecture set forward by Kahn and his team. The first handset was made by Sharp Electronics and the whole system complete with picture-sharing was made public in 1999 with excellent commercial success by 2001. In the North American market, Sprint and Verizon partnered with LightSurf. However, Sprint was the first to deploy a commercial system in 2002. The Sprint system, designed, developed, managed by LightSurf, was a combination of ASP/MSP solutions. The first US camera phone was the Sanyo SCP-5300 running on the Sprint infrastructure with the LightSurf Picture-Mail system. (Sanyo SCP-5300 Specs)

Starfish Software (1994-1998)

Starfish Software was founded in 1994 by Philippe Kahn and Sonia Lee. The founding vision of Starfish was "global synchronization and integration of wireless and wireline devices", which translated with the TrueSync platform to: "Enter or edit information anywhere, synchronization is automatic everywhere". Starfish developed much of the core IP for device synchronization, especially in the wireless industry. TrueSync was the first Over-The-Air (OTA) synchronization system. Starfish was successfully acquired by Motorola for $325 million in 1998 and subsequently became a division of Nokia after Motorola's downturn. Today Starfish's technology is an integral part of the Nokia platform.

Borland (1982-1995)

Kahn was Co-founder and CEO of Borland from 1982 to 1994 Borland competed with Microsoft in the 80s and early 90s. President, CEO, and Chairman of Borland since inception and taking Borland without venture capital from no revenues to a $500 million run-rate, Kahn and the Borland board came to a disagreement on how to focus the company. Kahn was forced to resign by the Borland board from his position as CEO in January 1995. When Borland was acquired by Micro Focus on May 6, 2009, the San Jose Mercury News reported that, "Philippe Kahn, who co-founded the company in 1983 and headed it until 1994, called the deal a 'great fit and synergism for both companies and excellent outcome for employees, customers and shareholders.'"

Philanthropy

Sonia Lee and Philippe Kahn established the Lee-Kahn Foundation in 1998. The foundation sponsors local and national non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing human growth through increased access to health care, education and the arts as well as animal welfare.

Music

Kahn has a degree from the Zurich conservatory in classical music composition and flute performance. In interviews he makes it clear that he practises every day and that music is a key part of his personal life. In particular on his Facebook page he cites Debussy as his "religion". Kahn has recorded jazz albums with professionals that are among his friends. He has recorded three albums that mix modern classical influences such as Dutilleux, Jolivet and Debussy with straight ahead jazz. His albums are available on most online music stores. In 1990 he released "Pacific High" featuring: John Abercrombie, Alex Acuna, Richie Beirach, Billy Hart, Ray Kane and Dave Liebman. In 1991 he released a CD called "Walking on the Moon," featuring his own performance and promoting space exploration. Later in 1992 he released "Paradiso" featuring: John Abercrombie, Alex Acuna, Alan Broadbent, Terence Blanchard, Peter Erskine, Dave Eshelman and John Patitucci. These albums can be found on iTunes and Amazon.

Sailing and sports

Kahn's focus on the environment and the outdoors lead him to the sport of sailing. Kahn's sailing team, Pegasus Racing, competes in many world championships each year around the world. An offshore sailor with over 10 trans-Pacific crossings, Kahn holds the double handed record from San Francisco to Oahu, Hawaii. Recent sailing achievements also include winning the double handed division of the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race race from Los Angeles to Hawaii, and setting the Transpac record at 7 days, 19 hours, beating the previous time of 10 days, 4 hours. In this Gizmodo interview, Kahn discusses the race.

Philippe's Law

In the early 1990s while at Borland, Kahn postulated a formula of software development productivity that, in a 1992 COMDEX keynote speech, he named Philippe's Law. The law states that the productivity of a software developer in a team of N people is diminished by dividing it by the cube root of N.

Philippe's 3 Rules of Software Craftsmanship

In late 2007 in his keynote address at the MEMS Executive Congress, Kahn formulated what he called "Philippe's 3 Rules of Software Craftsmanship:

Notes

Bibliography

External links

• Lee-Kahn Foundation, has biographies of Lee and Kahn
• Fullpower Technologies, has biographies of Lee and Kahn
• Pegasus Racing, follows all of Kahn's sailing activities
• Three Decades of Innovation: Philippe Kahn's Personal Stories Computer History Museum, September 25, 2003. Google videos.
• Sanyo SCP-5300 Spec Page with FCC certification date - Phonescoop