Re-Emergence Of Paul Allen -- Toolbook Opens New Chapter

Almost lost in the hoopla over Windows 3.0 the past two days is the quiet re-emergence of the other co-founder of Microsoft Corp., Paul Allen.

Now at the helm of his second software company, Asymetrix Corp., Allen yesterday chose a distinguished room in the New York City Public Library, the imposing edifice of ``Ghost Busters'' movie-fame, to announce Asymetrix's first product, called ToolBook.

It was a far cry from the Big News of the day: Bill Gates and Microsoft broadcasting word of the new superstar of software - Windows 3.0 - live via satellite to six cities from New York's City Center Theater.

Although Allen announced his product the day before Gates took the stage today, Allen and Asymetrix were overshadowed by Microsoft, the company Allen helped create.

However, some analysts think Allen's ToolBook may be the most important single piece of software released for Windows 3.0. And Allen is getting a big boost for his

venture from Gates and Microsoft.

``It's a great product - clearly one of the world's great software products,'' says Stewart Alsop, publisher of the software industry chronicle PC Letter.

Great enough, says Microsoft chairman Gates, that Microsoft is including a sample ToolBook application and a ``runtime'' mini-version of ToolBook with every copy of Windows 3.0.

Gates stresses that he is not just doing his old friend a favor, nor favoring one product over others.

``ToolBook is an application that shows off Windows in an incredible way,'' says Gates. ``We are really helping each other.''

Allen's biggest task in making ToolBook a success, says Gates, may be in explaining the product, which uses new software technology called object-oriented programming to allow would-be developers literally to cut and paste chunks of pre-written software code to perform complex tasks.

``It is a hard product to describe,'' says Gates. ``If he can overcome that challenge, yes it could have an impact like PageMaker did. But you have to figure out how to describe it. And by putting in that sample, we are just trying to help with that job.''

Used with Windows 3.0, ToolBook may be an important link in the evolution of IBM-style computers toward the Macintosh.

Windows 3.0 is an enhancement of the current standard DOS software that runs the world's 50 million IBM and compatible computers. It will make those computers look on-screen much like Apple's Macintosh computer. Windows lets users control the PC by selecting icons, or pictures, instead of typing DOS's hard-to-remember commands.

ToolBook has been likened to the HyperCard software that runs only on Macs, and

which helped make the Mac so popular. The difference, says Microsoft's Gates, is that ToolBook is better.

``It's generations beyond HyperCard,'' says Gates.

Apple's HyperCard allows users to create with relative ease complex databases linking text, music and video from various sources. HyperCard is key, for example, to computer multimedia products.

Now ToolBook will open that multimedia door to the IBM world. One multimedia publisher, the Voyager Co., plans to offer Windows-ToolBook versions of several multimedia Videodisc programs once available only on the Mac.

However, ToolBook's uses go beyond multimedia. ToolBook is being described as a software construction set, which will let even non-programmers customize and create everything from interactive databases to simple on-screen animations for Windows 3.0. ToolBook records a user's activity on screen, then automatically ``writes'' the software code to reproduce the activity.

Still, it is far more complex than HyperCard.

``In pursuing (interests of) software developers,'' says Alsop, Asymetrix ``may have made ToolBook too complex for the little guy.''

Asymetrix's Allen counters that ToolBook may not be for novice computer users, but it's not just for programmers either. In an interview before yesterday's product announcement, Allen explained that ToolBook is easy - compared with developing applications for Windows 3.0 without ToolBook.

``What it gives you is access to Windows 3.0 right out of the box,'' says Allen, describing ToolBook. ``Windows provides this really nice graphical interface, and there's a really nice software-development kit for Windows if you're a programmer, a fairly serious programmer . . . What Toolbook does is give access to Windows to about a hundred times more people.''

ToolBook also will face competition in coming months from two similar products from other companies, Spinnaker Software, of Cambridge, Mass., and Echelon Development Corp., of Burlington, Mass. But Allen's association with Microsoft will clearly give his product a leap - at least from the starting gate.

As for the soft-sell style of Asymetrix's first announcement, or Gates' support of his old friend, it surprised few who know either man.

The two Seattle high school chums who founded Microsoft Corp. back in 1975 remain close, although they are as different as their news conferences.

Allen still owns roughly $1 billion worth of Microsoft stock, some 19 million shares or 17.3 percent of the stock - about half as much as Gates. Allen announced earlier this month that he was rejoining the board of Microsoft.

The re-emergence of Allen inevitably will invite comparison, or rather, contrasts:

The visionary Gates is thin, intense and so obsessed with software that, at times, he begins rocking back and forth when he talks about it, sometimes setting entire rooms of managers rocking with him. Gates alone has driven Microsoft to the top since Allen left the board in 1985.

Allen's physiognomy is opposite Gates, as is his personality. A medium-sized bear of a man with a soft handshake, the reclusive Allen must be prodded to speak loudly enough in interviews to activate a tape recorder.

In 1982, Allen was diagnosed with the cancer Hodgkin's disease. He quit his active job at Microsoft in 1983, to take life a bit slower. Also a noted software visionary - in fact the one who convinced Gates to drop everything at Harvard to help write BASIC, the program that launched Microsoft - Allen's vision seems more private.

Until this week's announcement, Allen - his cancer in remission for more than five years - has done his best to remain out of the public eye, despite his purchase of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team and his role as a board member and major shareholder of Egghead Discount Software.

There may have been some unconscious symbolism in his choice of the New York City Public Library as the location of his stroll back into the limelight. Late last year, Allen gave the University of Washington $10 million, its largest single contribution ever, in honor of his late father, Kenneth Allen, a longtime associate director of the UW library system.

For his part, Allen says he is back in the software business with both feet, aiming to succeed again.

``Our goal is to be a major player in the industry,'' says Allen. ``This is a real company with a real product, ToolBook, which Microsoft is endorsing. Right out of the box we're going to have a very sharp showing.''

Times staff reporter Paul Andrews contributed to this article.

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Available now

-- Windows will be available beginning today at retail software outlets with a price tag of $150. It may be less at discount stores and soon will be included with the purchase of many high-end 286 and 386 computers.

-- ToolBook, available today as well, is $395. It, too, will be ``bundled'' free with the high-end machines of a few computer makers, Zenith for one.