Bricks and Clicks -- New Alliances Announced

Click-And-Mortar Strategies... Wow, there's a lot going on. First on May 3, 2000, RealPulse announced that it had raised $140 million to create a "B2B e-commerce hub for the commercial real estate industry," which will operate as The Realm (to be launched later in the year). RealPulse acquired ARGUS Financial Software, CTI Limited, Newstar Solutions and B.J. Murray, Inc. Then literally the next day, May 4, 2000, eleven leading real estate companies announced Project Constellation (no web site yet), a new company capitalized with $135 million. This new venture will "form, incubate and sponsor real estate-related Internet, e-commerce and broadband enterprises; acquire interests in existing 'best of breed' companies on a synergistic basis; and act as an opportunistic consolidator across property sectors in the emerging real estate technology area." Investors in Project Constellation are AMB, Equity Office, Equity Residential, Kaufman & Broad, Simon Property, Spieker Properties, CB Richard Ellis, Jones Lang LaSalle, Trammell Crow, Chase Manhattan and Morgan Stanley.

These two announcements are big deals. Although their web business models are not crystal clear, their current businesses are profitable, which means that they have very deep pockets. Developing a web strategy for just one firm is extremely difficult. But developing a web strategy to knit together data and services provided by multiple firms creates mind-boggling complexity. So we'll have to wait to see how they will actually execute their announced strategies. In the meantime, I expect other traditional players to announce new web strategies and dozens of stealth web sites to come out of hibernation over the next few months. It's inevitable. In the future, the real estate business will be an e-business.

Note: You can listen to a fascinating teleconference call with all the Project Constellation players by calling 800-858-5309 (access code 40021, pass code 81277). This number was working on Sunday morning, May 14, 2000. But I understand that it will be taken down very soon.

PikeNet's Digital Expo... Connecting the Real Estate Dot-coms. That's the subtitle of my trade show in New York City on October 23-24, 2000, and that's the organizing principle. I'm designing the kind of show that I'd like to attend. "Don't give me a lot of buzz. Just give me the facts as quickly as possible so that I can make decisions!" ... I'm excited. You'll find preliminary details at the Digital Expo web site.

PikeNet 2000 Winner... And the winner of the Palm V Organizer is Jerry Holdner, Jr., VP of Market Research at Voit Commercial Brokerage, Anaheim, CA. Jerry's business card was randomly drawn from those returning the conference evaluation form. Thank you!

Correction: Mack-Cali's correct web address is www.mack-cali.com. Some subscribers received a truncated version of the correct URL in last Friday's Dispatch. Sorry!

--Peter