Seven years ago car mogul Pete Ellis lost everything to bankruptcy: his 16 dealerships in California and Arizona; houses in Bel Air, Aspen and Palm Springs; his private prop jet. But he wasn't out of the fast lane for long. Auto-By-Tel (www.autobytel.com), the car-buying Web site he launched in 1995, has become one of the Net's most lucrative successes, helping generate $500 million in sales a month.
The system is simple. Customers research autos on the site, then Ellis relays orders to a dealership close to the client. The 2,700 dealers in his U.S.-and Canada-wide network pay him monthly fees and guarantee no-haggle negotiations and minimal markups over cost. Buyers like the hassle-free bargains, while dealers can cut down on advertising costs and sales commissions. For Ellis it's a vindication of long-held beliefs. "Everyone's known what customers have wanted for years," says Ellis of his straight-shooting system, "but they haven't had a model to do it."
Ellis, 51, had become a household name on the West Coast in the 1980s, advertising on TV to push such then-revolutionary concepts as no-haggle deals. But in the '90s, an economic downturn led Ellis to "crash and burn," he says. "There's no way to express the pain." While wife Susie, now 45, worked as a spa consultant to support the couple, Ellis learned about the Net. Now his Irvine, Calif., company is worth about $200 million. Competitors such as Microsoft's Car-Point have joined the race, but Ellis feels his experience and repudiation of sleazy sales pitches will leave them in the dust. Now, he says, "the Internet is the salesman."
DOC (OR D.A.) FOR A DAY
Law & Order, E.R., Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, The Practice: With all these dramas on TV, couch potatoes might think they know all about doctoring or lawyering. A spin through Emergency Room Intern or D.A. Pursuit of Justice, two CD-ROM games from Alpha Software Corp., will prove otherwise. As an M.D. you examine patients and devise treatments. As a D.A. you prepare evidence, then grill witnesses. Both discs will have users hitting onscreen textbooks to bone up on lingo and concepts and soon feeling ready to become a pro—or play one on TV.
>Brenda Laurel
GIRL POWER
BRENDA LAUREL WAS SOMETHING OF A novelty when she began work in the computer industry. "When I went to my first computer electronics show in 1978," she says, "I was given a turquoise lab coat to wear, and people came from all over the floor to see the girl computer programmer."
Laurel, 47, is again the center of attention in Silicon Valley. In 1996 she completed an extensive, four-year study into girls' attitudes toward computer games. "We listened, and we learned what girls wanted," says Laurel, who then founded Purple Moon, a Mountain View, Calif., girls'-software company, last year. Her conclusions: Girls are bored by shoot-'em-up games and want characters they can relate to.
Purple Moon's CD-ROMs, among top sellers at Christmas, take a definite sugar-and-spice tack. In Rockett's New School, an eighth-grader struggles to fit in. In Secret Paths in the Forest, girls explore their feelings about friendship. The discs have their critics—a recent Ms. article argued that steering girls away from competitive games would "perpetuate the sexist status quo." But Laurel, the mother of two daughters and a stepdaughter, demurs. "These games," she says, "are about fun."
- Contributors:
- Stanley Young,
- Samantha Miller,
- Penelope Rowlands.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
