I do not know why Cendant sold off Sierra. I was not consulted then, and have not been consulted since – with respect to anything.
About 3 or 4 years ago, I made a decision to drop back in, and help Vivendi Universal get the business back on track. I wrote to their CEO and tried to meet. I’ll see if I can find the message I sent, and post it here. They responded by inviting me to visit their corporate headquarters for a meeting. I wrote back and said that I live in Mexico, and needed to do it as a conference call. They responded that if I didn’t want to fly to LA, at my own expense, the meeting was off. They could not be convinced to speak to me by phone.
I wanted no money. My sole goal was to help get Sierra back on top of the industry. It’s certainly possible that they are mad at me for some reason I’m unaware of — but, I don’t think that is it. I think its nothing more than that they are a big company, and they think like big companies. Anything out of the box doesn’t fit their mold. I keep thinking someday one of their corporate folk will read this board and call me. If it ever actually occurs, I’ll post a message here.
You may have noticed that they did a Leisure Suit Larry without involving Al Lowe. They have never contacted Roberta to speak about Kings Quest or Phantasmagoria.
Don’t ask me to explain this type of behaviour…
-Ken W
PS I just re-read my response, and it sounds like ‘sour grapes’. My apologies for that, but this really is a case where criminal conduct was involved. Perhaps, not with respect to Sierra, although Sierra’s shareholders were amongst those who were harmed by CUC’s criminal actions. And, as I’ve said before, a lot of people I really care about were badly hurt, and a brand name I spent most of my life building was allowed to die. If that doesn’t justify some sour grapes, what does?
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That’s really interesting, Ken…thanks for the fill-in.
I HAVE to ask one more thing…you dropped out of the CUC board and left before the HFS/Cendant merger and subsequent fraud unveiling, right? Do you know what prompted Cendant to sell off their software devision? Was it the simple fact that, because they were caught and loosing lots of money, if they sold Sierra (again) off to Vivendi Sierra might…if even only by name, survive? Did Cendant tell you or ask for your advice when they saw that they may have to sell Sierra off to Vivendi/Havas?
Sorry if I’m overly bugging you…but this is really interesting to me…I try to imagine what would have happened if Cendant was able to keep Sierra, would they have re-grown the software business, or would it have kept running into the ground?
History, even the ‘bad’ or ‘dark’ stuff is still, in my opinion, interesting to hear. Although Sierra is ‘still’ just a copyright, one never knows what Vivendi may have in store for it…until then…
Thanks again, Ken,
BC
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