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To: Bill Harmond who wrote (79677)	10/5/1999 6:43:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Good boy! :) We'll show 'em! Today was a decent day for me and I did not even know it until after market closed. Now that is a buy and hold strategy<G> Glenn

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (79677)	10/5/1999 7:11:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

FOCUS-U.S. real estate firms in telecom venture (adds company quotes in paragraphs 10,11 and 17, analyst quotes in 9, 18 and 19, adds by-line) By Derek Caney NEW YORK, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Eight of the largest commercial U.S. real estate companies are teaming up with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to offer a range of Internet-based voice and high-speed data services to their office tenants, the companies said on Tuesday. The new telecommunications company, known as Broadband Office Inc., comes with a built-in client base in the form of the realtors' tenants, which occupy 10 percent of all U.S. commercial office space. Broadband Office will begin offering local- and long-distance telephone service plus high-speed Internet connections. Kleiner Perkins is expected to spend around $100 million to bring the venture to fruition, according to Kevin Compton, general partner with Kleiner Perkins. The real estate consortium is not putting up any of the initial capital to form the company, a spokesman for the consortium said. The real estate consortium includes CarrAmerica Realty Corp. <CRE.N>, Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. <CEI.N>, Duke-Weeks Realty Investments Inc. <DRE.N>, Equity Office Properties Trust <EOP.N>, Highwoods Properties Inc. <HIW.N>, the Hines organization, Mack-Cali Realty Corp. <CLI.N> and Spieker Properties Inc. <SPK.N>. The real estate companies will jointly hold a majority stake in the company, Compton said. Broadband said it will begin offering services in 45 days. Its presence will span nearly every major metropolitan area of the country, including the 30 largest office markets and well over 2,000 office buildings. If successful, the venture could eventually compete with companies as large as AT&T Corp. <T.N> and MCI Worldcom Inc. <WCOM.O>, according to Bruce Roberts, senior telecommunications analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. "What this does is preempts deals that businesses would originally make with the bigger companies," he said. "With Broadband Office, when you move into a new office, you plug in your phones and your computers and it's all there," said Compton. "You'll have e-mail. You'll have access to accounting applications. You'll have all of your data backed up onto networks. You don't have to think about running extra telephone lines or getting extra servers," he said. The group is in discussions with other real estate owners to expand the number of buildings served, it said in a statement. The venture is based in Washington, D.C. and the San Francisco Bay area. Kleiner Perkins has been a founding investor in such companies as America Online Inc. <AOL.N> Amazon.com Inc.<AMZN.O>, Compaq Computer Corp. <CPQ.N> and Sun Microsystems Inc. <SUNW.O> and is known for targeting new business markets with an eye toward creating dominant companies. "The goal of this company is nothing less than to create the leading player in what we believe to be one of the business world's most dynamic industries -- the telecommunications industry," Compton said. "We are currently building what we believe will be the deepest and most talented management team in the industry," he said. Broadband Office's senior executive team includes managers from MCI Worldcom Inc. <WCOM.O>, MCI's UUNET unit, Level 3 Communications Inc. <LVLT.O>, consultant Booz-Allen Hamilton, BellSouth Corp. <BLS.N> and other companies, he said. Compton said he didn't expect any antitrust issues stemming from the deal. "We're not requiring tenents to sign up," Compton said. "But we will offer it to them." Christopher Hartung, managing director of Bank of America Securities, saw the deal as a positive for the real estate companies. "They're not putting up any of the initial capital, so it's a pretty low risk proposition for them," he said. "What they are providing is access. "It reflects a changing attitude on the part of real estate companies to vi...