Paul Allen Starts New Software Company

The co-founder of Microsoft has started Xiant, a new software company, and unleashed the beta of its first product.

Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, made a veritable fortune before he left the company. Since then, he’s been involved in a number of ventures around Seattle, and bankrolled start-ups through his Vulcan investment company.

Now Allen is dipping his toe into software. According to the Seattle Times, he has a new company called Xiant, which has released the beta of its first product, Xiant Filer, an e-mail sorting program that runs in Outlook.

Company spokesman David Postman told the newspaper:

"I am not a very organized guy, and I’ve never been good about keeping my inbox clean. I just wait until I have a whole day with nothing to do and I just go through and hit delete delete delete and I’m clicking and dragging. This is really cool, you just right-click and it suggests where it thinks you might want to file it. The more you do it, the more it learns those things."

Xiant Filer is currently available as a free beta, and will go on sale in around two months for about $39. The company is also working on a version for the BlackBerry, and is expected to have other products in the future.