It's probably fair to say that each of these services represent much more than software. They represent a reapportionment of work, a potential redistribution of time and effort in the real estate process. In the spirit of reengineering, they permit business processes to be redesigned. There will be resistance to full-bodied approaches until more success stories surface and the technology is better understood. The time, particularly for real estate, appears close at hand.
Proximity is essentially distance measured either through a roads network or as the crow flies.
In the example below, we've ranked Tempe intersections according to proximity to the Tempe public. The evaluation can be further weighted to account for different types of customers or proximity to competition. For example, the HMO might want to break out its evaluation in terms of proximity to service subscribers, proximity to medical staff and proximity to competition. A car dealership might want to look at proximity to various customer segments, i.e. economy, mid-size, sports and luxury segments. A panacea this approach is not.