Phillipe Kahn

Tarter remembers visiting Kahn at Borland's Scotts Valley, Calif., headquarters. "I walked around the company and all these people were giving me very complicated explanations of why this was being done. Finally at 4:00 in the afternoon, I got to Philippe. He said, 'It's really very easy. About 90 percent of our sales were going to be to upgrade customers who were going to pay that [amount] anyway. I didn't really leave any money on the table. Everyone was convinced they were getting a bargain, and it didn't cost us.' That," said Tarter, "is genius."

Many industry watchers contrast Kahn, and other PC software pioneers of the 1980s and 1990s, with today's crop of decidedly less colorful individuals coming out of business schools in droves looking to make a quick fortune off the Internet.

"Unlike the M.B.A.s now running the bulk of Web start-ups, people like Kahn were complete nonconformists. He was the epitome of that," said a current executive with Microsoft who requested anonymity.

That's for sure. It is hard to imagine any of today's executives,and many of yesterday's, for that matter,having as much fun as Kahn. When he was not hosting toga parties at the West Coast Trade Faire or Comdex where he reigned supreme as Bacchus, complete with head wreath and grape-bunch earrings, he was flying around in his jet or a bi-plane. Or sailing. Or riding his Honda Hog 650. Or playing saxophone at industry events. Or egging Borland public relations and marketing folks to clap and yell louder so Borland would win the "applause-o-meter" contest at the Demo show, beating hated rival Microsoft. The guy wanted to win. And win against Microsoft. You gotta love that.

The company came close. If only it had been able to ship promised products such as Interbase, Paradox for Windows or Quattro Pro for Windows on time, it really could have become, as one Wall Street analyst famously said, "the Microsoft of the '90s."

Regardless, Kahn knew where the industry was headed and was an early and avid proponent of object-oriented programming.

"He is larger than life, both in terms of being a visionary, in his physical appearance and the way he presents things. Whatever he does, if it's worth doing it's worth overdoing," said Steve Kahn, who is no relation to Philippe but was a vice president at Borland and now heads iMiner, a San Jose, Calif.-based Web start-up in which Kahn has invested.

Many cite Kahn's marketing prowess. "Philippe's greatest contribution is radical guerrilla marketing," said Sheldon Laube, chairman of CenterBeam Inc., Santa Clara, Calif. "The fact that he sold his compiler for $49 through the mail was amazing [at the time]. He is a renaissance guy, not a geek programmer, but a world-class sailor, a pilot, an accomplished musician. He's the kind of guy that after you sit down with him you think, 'Gee, I haven't done a lot in my life.' "

Spencer Leyton, who was senior vice president of business development at Borland, agreed: "Philippe was the guy who made fun in the industry while actually making some of the best tools we ever had."

But for all his outside interests, Kahn was much more hands-on than many at his level. He once stopped the production line on one product as it was getting shrink-wrapped because he did not like the label.

In 1990, Lotus Development Corp., Cambridge, Mass., took Borland to court, alleging that Borland Quattro Pro infringed on Lotus 1-2-3 copyrights. The six-year legal tangle ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Borland won the epic battle, but by that time, it no longer mattered. While Lotus and Borland beat each other up, Microsoft Excel had cornered the Windows spreadsheet market.

Microsoft's decision to enter the PC database realm by buying FoxPro,ironically, a move facilitated by Kahn's buyout of Ashton-Tate for $439 million,hurt Borland. In 1992, Microsoft turned Borland's own weapon against it by offering its PC database for a mere $99. At the time such databases, including Borland's own, listed for around $795.

In 1995, Kahn stepped down as chief executive and then as chairman. He went on to found Starfish Software Corp., which he sold to Motorola Inc. Borland has since been renamed Inprise Corp. Kahn still heads Starfish and is involved in at least two other start-ups, LightSurf Technologies Inc. and OpenGrid.

Regardless of Borland's fate, it was Kahn's breed of guerrilla marketing that still gets people talking.

"These guys in the early days were unconventional individuals, not like the well-bred CEOs of the Internet boom," said the Microsoft executive.

Kahn, and lieutenants like Gene Wang, seemed to mesmerize developers. Programmers jammed demos of the latest Borland compilers, languages and databases. There was almost palpable adoration of Kahn at these events. One Wall Street analyst watched aghast at one New York show as a pasty-faced developer stripped down in order to immediately put on his newest Borland T-shirt.

Kahn is known to be as fine a friend as he is a fierce competitor. He once counseled a Borland executive who lost a family member to help him through the crisis.

As for Wang, he left Borland for rival Symantec Corp. but did so under a dark cloud,he was prosecuted for trade secret theft. Wang later told a reporter that when he saw Kahn years afterward at a trade show, Kahn, then at Starfish, greeted him warmly "then tried to sell me something," Wang quipped.

And years after the bad blood between the two, Wang said Kahn has been extremely supportive of his new venture, even helping it gain financing.

Love him or hate him, one thing is certain, there truly is no one in the high-tech industry like Philippe Kahn.