Construction.com and BuildPoint Corp. To Forge Strategic E-Commerce Partnership

Business Wire, June 6, 2000

Building/Construction Editors/High Tech Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2000

The McGraw-Hill Companies' construction.com to Expand e-Commerce

Capabilities with BuildPoint Technology and Supplier Community;

BuildPoint to Extend Reach to Customers and Content

Construction.com, the most comprehensive online marketplace for construction professionals and part of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), and BuildPoint Corp., the leading provider of e-commerce marketplaces for the construction industry, today announced a strategic partnership to provide construction professionals with powerful online exchanges for the purchase and sale of construction goods and services.

BuildPoint's marketplaces will become the exclusive e-commerce engine powering bidding and procurement tools on construction.com. This will enable construction.com to provide the industry's most powerful online project bidding and materials procurement tools to the largest user base in the industry. BuildPoint's network of suppliers will now have access to construction.com's established base of construction professionals.

Construction.com is the industry leader in content and community through F.W. Dodge, with its details on more than 500,000 projects valued at over $1 trillion, and Sweet's, the top decision-making resource for 90 percent of the world's architects and design professionals.

"This partnership integrates the power of The McGraw-Hill Companies' construction.com's content and communities with BuildPoint's e-commerce marketplace," said Lara Abrams, senior analyst, Aberdeen Group. "Construction professionals, including those who already use construction.com to gather product information and job leads both on and offline, will now be able to leverage BuildPoint's procurement and bidding tools to transact business more quickly and at a lower cost as a result of this strategic announcement. Through this partnership, construction.com and BuildPoint.com will help drive greater efficiencies in the highly fragmented construction industry."

Construction.com will now provide owners, architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, distributors and building product manufacturers with enhanced tools for cost-effectively identifying new projects, submitting bids and purchasing the goods and services they need. Construction.com is the commercial construction industry's most-visited Web site, logging over 1,200,000 user sessions monthly with over 575,000 unique users.

"We chose BuildPoint over other construction e-commerce providers because of their proven expertise in developing and operating online marketplaces for the construction industry," said Norbert W. Young, Jr., FAIA, president, the McGraw-Hill Companies' Construction Information Group. "We recognized that BuildPoint had already built optimal infrastructure for materials procurement and bidding based on real domain expertise as well as a supplier base to meet the needs of construction.com purchasers. By adopting BuildPoint's infrastructure, we will quickly add greater functionality to construction.com and enhance our value proposition to the hundreds of thousands of construction.com users."

"This partnership clearly demonstrates that BuildPoint is delivering the right e-commerce offering for the construction industry," said James Piraino, president and CEO, BuildPoint. "Co-branding e-commerce services with construction.com provides BuildPoint much greater visibility and reach within the construction community. Suppliers will now be able to benefit from the combined buying communities of construction.com and BuildPoint.com."

According to today's announcement, BuildPoint will develop and maintain two exclusive Web-based marketplaces within construction.com -- one for the purchase and sale of construction related goods and services and another for project bidding. Construction.com will use BuildPoint's existing bid and procurement tools, and both will be branded "Powered by BuildPoint."

Also according to today's announcement, BuildPoint will provide a link for its supplier community to construction.com's extensive database of active construction projects, integrating the database into its project bidding tools.

The transaction is subject to the completion of a final agreement and is expected to close in the near future.

About Construction.com

Construction.com is the industry marketplace that enables construction professionals to do their job faster, better and cheaper. Building on The McGraw-Hill Companies' heritage as the world's premier information provider to the $1.7 trillion commercial construction industry, construction.com uses the Internet to help its customers to get the latest industry intelligence and interactive solutions that help professional decision-makers do their jobs successfully. By leveraging the powerful content of The McGraw-Hill Companies' leading editorial brands, including F.W. Dodge, Sweet's Group, Engineering News-Record, Architectural Record, and Design-Build, construction.com integrates unmatched market intelligence, unique project management tools, and end-to-end access to the construction community. Construction.com employs more than 1,700 professionals around the world.