Under the hood: Borland inside. (Borland International CEO Philippe Kahn) (HotSeat) (Column) (Interview)

CEO Philippe Kahn seeks allies, not enemies, on the road to creating interactive tele-communications systems.

Since the announcement last spring of Borland International Inc.'s corporate reorganization, Chairman and CEO Philippe Kahn has gradually disclosed the company's new vision and strategy.

In a recent trip to Japan to meet with potential partners for Borland Interactive, Kahn explained to IDG News Service Tokyo Correspondent Rob Guth how Borland's technology might be used in future partnerships. Kahn also spoke about the forthcoming Delphi95 client/server application development tool and his company's recent partnership with Sybase Inc.

What are some of the companies you have been meeting with?

Cable and telecommunications, computer hardware companies in Japan. We just closed a deal with Motorola and Nextel [in the United States]. It basically has to do with their messaging and paging service and there are similar opportunities in Japan.

What is Borland Interactive trying to achieve?

Our strategy for the information superhighway is slightly different than our competitors'. Microsoft is doing their own thing, and we are really trying to make a piece of the thing. We're partnering with people, and we're trying to work with them rather than compete with them.

When you say "a piece of" the information superhighway, what do you mean?

We have technology we've developed over time through our commitment to object computing, our early commitment to storing binary large …