Bill Gates's Other Bugaboo

With the U.S. Justice Dept. closing in and the stock market tetchy about the high-tech sector, Microsoft Corp. Chairman William H. Gates III has lots more to fret about than a London startup. But of all his worries, Gates puts eight-month-old Symbian, a maker of mobile-phone software, right up near the top. Indeed, in an internal memo last year, he called the outfit one of his company's greatest "threats." Strong words for a tiny venture with a workforce of 300. Yet in this David and Goliath match up, little Symbian is wielding a powerful digital slingshot.

What's really troubling Gates is Symbian's mighty parents. Mobile phone powers Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola, along with British handheld-computer maker Psion PLC, formed the venture last summer. The idea was to create a common software platform for the next generation of Web-surfing phones, souped-up cell phones that will give callers access to the Internet. These smart phones may proliferate faster than personal computers, accounting for perhaps 25% of 1 billion cell phones expected to be in use worldwide in six years. The aim: to untether the Net from desktops and phone lines. If the phone behemoths have their way, these machines, from phones to palmtops, will run on Symbian software--not on Microsoft's system for handheld machines, Windows CE. "Our goal is to become the wireless standard," says Symbian CEO Colly Myers.