Picking up the pieces in the Silicon Alley ; Bigfoot transforms itself into survivor by snapping up best of failed rivals.(New consumer e-mail company)(Brief Article)

Crain's New York Business, April, 2002 by Fickenscher, Lisa

When Al DiGuido took over as the head of Favemail Inc. two years ago, he started remaking the place almost immediately. For openers, he plucked the struggling consumer e-mail company out of its posh digs on Madison Avenue and plunked it down in an erstwhile industrial building on Ninth Avenue and West 25th Street.

``It was a junk-heap for old printing equipment in an attic-like space,'' recalls Mr. DiGuido. It was also dirt cheap, handing the new boss what he so desperately needed: a savings of more than a million dollars in annual rent. Since then, Mr. DiGuido has moved aggressively to scoop up not just cheap real estate, but also companies and key technologies at bargain-basement prices, as much of Silicon Alley has collapsed around him. In what...

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