Where's the Road Ahead? ... Here's the essence of a recent e-mail from a real estate consultant. "When will the age of enlightenment begin? Who will lead it? The customer? The broker? ... For 15 years I have been involved selling lease administration services on a non-transaction basis. The market wasn't ready then, and it doesn't seem much readier now. Am I missing something?" Translation: The real estate industry is slow to adopt new business practices.

Well, yes. But it could be worse. Last month Vectiv, a "store life-cycle management solution," announced that it was seeking to sell its assets. With blue chip backing from Accenture's venture capital arm, Vectiv had burned through $18 million and 80,000 person-hours developing its software. Founder Frank Rockwood writes, "When your best Wall Street comp, which in our case was Retek, goes from a market capitalization of about $2 billion when Vectiv was launched to less than $100 million last month, it is a tough time to make it as an independent start-up in the big leagues of enterprise software."

Yet other real estate software companies are thriving. Last October I spoke to the Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference in Santa Barbara, which was attended by 500 customers. Founded in 1982 and with a staff of 300, Yardi has gradually incorporated the Internet into its existing software. And as I observed in the breakout sessions, its customers seem very committed to adopting and enhancing its growing line of products.

My conclusion: When you hear the phrase "We're changing the paradigm," put your hand on your wallet. Most successful real estate technology solutions will simply extend existing technology tools into new business processes. Yes, our industry will gradually gain efficiencies. But we will probably not leap ahead on the back of totally new technology innovation. That's my two cents. What do you think?

Spread the Word... And thanks to our sponsor, Realize Solutions, which aims to find the right software for you. ... If you would like to sponsor the PikeNet Dispatch, please send e-mail or call me at 415-485-6700. Only two more issues left in January next year.

--Peter Pike