A French-born mathematician, Philippe worked in Zurich, Switzerland under Niklaus Wirth in the 1970s on Pascal. Under his direction, Borland International, the industry independent leader for professional software development tools, grew from a startup to become the largest supplier of professional software development tools with several thousand employees worldwide and $500 Million in revenues. His company, Starfish, which was successfully acquired by Motorola in 1998, is the pioneer and the leader for multi-point synchronization of wireless devices. Its founding vision: `Global synchronization and integration of wireless and wireline devices' remains the company's entire focus.