PRESS RELEASES - Storm Front Spreading Across America

In The Beginning

In the late summer of 1997, several Builders Exchanges from around the country met in Cleveland, Ohio, to create an on-line reporting service that would be simple to use, easy to maintain and inexpensive to purchase. Eight months later, on April 4, 1998, The Builders Exchange in Cleveland went live with the first version of the IPIN, (Internet Planroom Information Network), on-line reporting software.

The program has since been used by over thirty Builders Exchanges, Construction Associations and private planrooms throughout the United States and Canada. It has been the success of IPIN that has caused a gathering of clouds throughout the reporting industry. Those clouds are now forming to create a massive thunderhead that will spawn THE STORM.

National Reporting Services

For the past one hundred years, the F.W. Dodge Company has enjoyed an unprecedented position in American business. They have been virtually without competition on the national front. It was only a few years ago that CMD, (Construction Market Data), who claims to have national coverage, posed any threat to Dodge’s stranglehold on the American market.

Over the years the cost for a national reporting contract has skyrocketed often times reaching six figures and beyond for limited access, late reports and, in many cases, totally inaccurate information. Those days are about to end.

Builders Exchanges and Private Planrooms

During those same one hundred years that Dodge enjoyed a national monopoly, the same could not be said for Dodge in local construction markets. There, they met stiff competition from Builders Exchanges and private planrooms. Scattered throughout this country was a loose network of reporting agencies that was dedicated to publishing the best, most accurate and most timely construction reports in their area. As a result, they have flourished locally, but, due to the costs of producing a national report, they could never meld their local products to compete with Dodge in the national arena.

And Then Came The INTERNET

The Internet has changed the face of business and each of our lives. Opportunities abound, and the construction reporting industry has been quick to take advantage. Today over 300 national dot.coms are trying to become the E-Bay of the construction industry. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into these companies by people with no sense of the industry, flawed business plans and an arrogance that knows no bounds.

Many of these dot.coms have already fallen by the wayside and most of the rest are in serious financial trouble. So, why is THE STORM succeeding where most others have failed?

A Solid Foundation

THE STORM is uniting with approximately 150 reporting partners throughout the United States to gather, package and redistribute construction reports via the Internet. Each of our reporting partners are firmly entrenched in their respective construction markets, they know the industry, they know the personalities and they are all financially solid and locally respected.

THE STORM is transfering those attributes to the national marketplace to finally provide the consumer with a first rate alternative to the monopoly that has griped this nation for over one hundred years.