[Nettime-bold] dot com auction

[Steve <cisler@pobox.com>]

Our newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, has a sizable business and
technology section, even after layoffs within the publishing industry.
Of course, these days the news is not good. Yesterday, it was noted that
the U.S. stock market had lost more than $1.3 trillion since the 9.11
attacks.  Tonight it was reported that the attackers probably spent no
more than $300,000 on all the planning, tickets, box cutters, and flight
training.  I guess that's why the term "asymmetrical" is being used to
describe the terrorism.

While I have been glued to TV and computer screens for a couple of
weeks, and with a couple of conferences cancelled, I needed to get out
of the house.  Also, the chair at my computer is about 20 years old and
falling apart.  The business section, besides carrying stock prices, bad
news, and press releases, also advertises auctions.  Since the Internet
crash and the subsequent problems in the telecommunications industry,
there have been about one a month.  Friends reported there was so much
extra furniture that it was left on the street in the south of Market
area in San Francisco.  Auction houses have shipped gear to other
western towns because this area is so saturated.  However, I saw an ad
for an equipment auction where there was no entry fee to view over 2000
items in a warehouse  in Santa Clara.

I drove up yesterday and arrived at a parking lot full of other bargain
hunters curious about the stuff for sale.  I picked up a thick catalog
with double columns of terse descriptions and the terms of sale (as is,
no warranties, etc) and rules for bidding.  There were hundreds of
laptops, lids open and on each a sticker that listed the RAM and hard
drive size. Even more rack-mount servers, desktop machines and thousands
of square meters of large monitors. There were pallets of older
machines, printers, and broken monitors.

It was overwhelming to see the evidence of the failure of these
companies (about 15 were represented here) and what was left of them.
The furniture included rosewood tables (rolling), dozens of filing
cabinets, and at least 150 office chairs, primarily the Herman Miller
Aeron chair which retails for about $600.  A handful of projectors, tubs
of assorted hardware and software, and some networking gear.

I left, having marked a couple of items I'd be willing to buy, if the
price were right. I would find out at the auction.  It took place today
at the Santa Clara Convention Center, usually home to dozens of high
tech conferences each year. Now it was quiet, and with few people flying
the adjacent hotel was almost empty except for two small meetings for
local high tech firms.   I walked to the auditorium, filled in my name
and email, received a "paddle" with my number, and took a seat.

The auction started at 11 a.m., and the room had filled almost to
capacity--at least 500 people, mainly guys between 30 and 60. Very few
women.  One baby cried somewhere in the audience.  After a few jokes the
auctioneer, a huge young man in a tight blue suit, repeated the rules
and launched into the first item, a label maker. It went fo $25.  He
quickly sized up the interest in a product, the right price point to
start the bidding, and then his assistants stood at the edge of the
stage and pointed at the current high bidder for each piece. They moved
through two items a minute, on the average, yet with over 2000 they
expected to finish by that evening.

It was actually exciting to see what people were willing to pay for
untested gear, but everyone seemed blase about the purchases, partly
because there is so much equipment on the market. The laptops ranged
from $300 to $1000 depending on the configuration. Projectors went from
$1000 to $1800, and monitors brought $100 to $400. The few Macintoshes
sprinkled through the program were bought by the same man from India who
probably paid too much.  Most of the stuff brought 20% to 30% of the
retail value, sometimes less.  After two hours I realized the charis
that itnerested me would not be up for bid until the evening, so I gave
up and headed home, knowing that it will be repeated next month with a
new load from the latest firms to liquidate the assets or fail
completely.


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