Today in Globe Business

Developers see opportunity in car-dealer lots

With dozens of car dealerships in Massachusetts scheduled to be closed, real estate developers are looking to replace the soon-to-be-empty showrooms with stores, hotels, and office buildings.

"This potentially represents a sea change in the availability of commercial real estate," said Len Bierbrier, president of Bierbrier Development of Lexington. "You never see this many terrific opportunities to acquire usable land."

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC will close the dealerships because they aren't selling enough cars. But the large lots they occupy - along highways as well as major suburban streets - are considered prime locations for other types of businesses.

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Hancock Tower: Rebuilding its fading image

The John Hancock Tower cuts a stunning profile on Boston's skyline, but employees who work there say behind its shimmering facade lay blemishes most people never see: random hot and cold spots, a dank and dated cafeteria, and no on-site parking.

"I like the outside so much better than the inside," said Ursula Hamman, 36, a senior account administrator who works in the sixth-floor offices of State Street Corp.

The recession has only added to the building's troubles, as some of its largest tenants have opted to leave rather than pay higher rents charged by a prior landlord, leaving nearly one-sixth of the tower vacant during the worst real estate downturn in decades.

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Start-up built on free software

When cofounder Jay Batson was putting together his start-up Acquia last year, he figured one advantage would help it stand out from all the other companies that manage Web content for business clients.

The software was free.

"Free is very disruptive," Batson said. "In a fragmented market, 'free' commands a lot of attention."

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3Com is finding an opportunity in recession

Ron Sege, president of 3Com Corp. in Marlborough, believes that the global recession has provided his company an extraordinary opportunity to become a major international supplier of high-end data networking gear, a market presently dominated by mighty Cisco Systems Inc.

"The recession is creating demand for what we have to offer," said Sege. Designed and built in China, 3Com's line of less-expensive data network switches, called H3C, are a good option for cash-strapped corporations looking to trim data management budgets, he said.

3Com was the first company to sell the now-universal Ethernet data networking technology and became a world leader in networking during the 1990s. But staggered by the high-tech recession of 2001-2002, 3Com shifted most of its development efforts to H3C, a joint venture in China with Huawei Technologies. H3C created a line of cheap, energy-efficient switches that companies can use to join many subnetworks into a single large data network.

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BOSTON CAPITAL: Power Play

No one will ever accuse Greg Yurek of short-term thinking.

Yurek, a former professor who left MIT in 1987 to help start American Superconductor Corp., ended up running the company and taking it public four years later. The business proposition: develop materials that could conduct vastly more electricity than comparably sized copper or aluminum wire into a commercially viable transmission cable. Patience helped.

American Superconductor, now based in Devens, celebrated its first quarterly profit ever this month. Lots of people are talking about the company's superconducting wire now but, ironically, that product had little to do with the profit. A separate wind-power business built up in recent years by American Superconductor is the company's real moneymaker.

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