ExciteAtHome auctions off cars and office equipment

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 29 Reuters reported that the company car was a 1994 BMW. The equipment in the office gym included a foot massager. And when employees at ExciteAtHome Corp. were not hard at work building a would-be dot-com giant, they could enjoy down time at the company piano, arcade game, ping pong or foos ball tables.

All that and everything else that once filled the offices of the bankrupt Internet service provider went on the auction block Wednesday as one of the final steps in the liquidation of the company, which went out of business earlier this year.

More than 3,000 people came to the company's now-deserted offices or logged onto a Webcast to bid on some 4,620 items including espresso makers and not-yet-emptied waste paper bins, but mostly more standard office equipment like computers, fax machines, cable modems and laser printers.

Held at the site of one of the most prominent companies of the dot-com era, the auction drew considerable attention, and a few individuals sentimental for the old days.

HIGH PRICES

But it was mostly a serious business event with small business owners, liquidators and just people in the market for a computer looking for some bargains.

One of them, Ken Knox, who operates a small liquidating company out of Sacramento, left early, saying the event's high profile had pushed bids for some things up close to what they sold for brand new in stores. He said he had fared better the week before at an auction of a telecom company where he made a bulk purchase of computer keyboards for $150 and quickly resold them for $16,000.

"But here they're paying close to retail," he said, after a digital camcorder sold for $3000 -- good news for the creditors of ExciteAtHome, but not for anyone seeking a true bargain.

ExciteAtHome was formed in 1998 through the merger of two up-and-coming Internet companies, but started running into trouble shortly after it moved into its sprawling campus, and eventually crumbled under a massive pile of debt.

The auction held Wednesday was one of many held weekly by companies that are going out of business or just closing up offices. While auctions of such dot-coms as ExciteAtHome and the defunct grocer WebVan have drawn big crowds, other companies like Agilent Technologies Inc. , Cisco Systems Inc. and JDS Uniphase Corp. are also hosting auctions to unload unneeded equipment.