Microsoft Introduces New Version of Realty Desktop By HomeAdvisor, Announces Nationwide Availability

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 22, 2001 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Realty Desktop™
transaction management platform, the Web-based service for real estate professionals, is available to market-leading brokers nationwide. Microsoft is demonstrating its commitment to providing technology solutions to real estate professionals with its launch of the new version of Realty Desktop, which reflects the company’s sharpened focus on the real estate industry. Released to the first customers this week, Realty Desktop includes a variety of new and enhanced tools and features specifically designed to allow real estate brokers to better manage customer relationships and transactions while saving time and increasing profitability.

Realty Desktop improves communication between real estate professionals and their clients by allowing buyers and sellers to track the status of a transaction in real time on secure, personal Web sites. Realty Desktop also reduces paperwork and provides brokers with increased control of the home transaction as well as additional revenue opportunities. Microsoft developed the new version specifically to meet the needs of multioffice brokers — the 500 largest real estate companies in the United States.

“Realty Desktop creates new revenue streams for brokers while promoting deeper, more profitable customer relationships,”
said Angie Brown, product unit manager for Realty Desktop at Microsoft Corp.
“With the addition of these new features, Realty Desktop will help brokers play an integral role in every stage of the customer relationship, from the initial lead to managing the transaction to home-related services after the sale.”

A sampling of the new Realty Desktop tools and features includes the following:

  • Client Web page. This enables agents to effectively communicate detailed transaction information to their clients. For every unique home transaction, the buyer or seller and agent will be able to go to a personalized, secure Web site to check the status of the transaction from anywhere, at any time. The customizable Web page allows clients to stay up to date on all aspects of the transaction.

  • Microsoft Outlook
    ®
    and Top Producer import. As part of its open platform, Realty Desktop enables real estate agents to import files and contact information from other software applications, including Top Producer and Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client.

  • Transaction templates. To improve the process of managing the myriad of tasks associated with transactions, Realty Desktop includes new templates for several customer scenarios. Because Realty Desktop is highly customizable, brokers can easily adapt those templates to meet their unique market requirements and to accommodate individual vendor preferences.

Microsoft will roll out Realty Desktop in several ways. These include marketing directly to leading real estate brokers as well as distributing Realty Desktop through arrangements with firms such as Interealty.com Inc., a leading provider of multiple listing service software. Interealty.com is incorporating Realty Desktop into MLXchange, the firm’s flagship product, to better serve its nationwide customer base of 280,000 real estate agents.

Realty Desktop is anchored by the Microsoft® ClearLead™ lead management platform provided by the bCentral small-business service team at Microsoft, which also powers CarPoint™ online automotive service, bCentral™
Customer Manager and other Web-based services. ClearLead enables all types of service professionals to enhance how they interact with customers via the Internet by enabling the automation of lead management, customer tracking and customer communications. Building on this technology, Realty Desktop offers a host of new tools and features designed to help real estate professionals with customer acquisition and retention, task and transaction management, and home-ownership services.

About Realty Desktop

Realty Desktop is a Web-based service that helps simplify the entire real estate transaction from beginning to end, delivering a single, integrated solution for customer acquisition and retention, task and transaction management, and home-ownership services. Built upon the Microsoft ClearLead lead management platform, Realty Desktop offers integrated tools that help brokers easily manage the events and details associated with customer and business needs. Together with HomeAdvisor.com™ , Realty Desktop is part of the MSN® network of Internet services. More information on Realty Desktop can be found at http://www.realtydesktop.com/ .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

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Microsoft, Realty Desktop, Outlook, ClearLead, Carpoint, bCentral, HomeAdvisor.com and MSN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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