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SIERRA PRESS RELEASE Sierra On-line Restructures Operations Oakhurst facility to close, Babylon 5 and Middle-earth development will continue at Bellevue, Washington Headquarters Feb.22.99 Following a year in which its dominant share in the PC entertainment market rose to more than 13%, Sierra, a world leader in productivity and entertainment software, today announced a reorganization of its development divisions to more keenly focus on its key products. "The entertainment market is changing and we need to maintain our leadership role in the category." stated Sierra's President, David Grenewetzki. "As we evolve into a mass market industry, we need to focus on the needs of the consumers. We feel that a more focused software strategy and a stronger commitment to the Internet and on-line gaming are key factors for our continued success." Effective immediately, a number of Sierra's development studios will be closed and many development teams will be relocated to Sierra's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. The move comes after five years of explosive growth at Sierra fueled by both numerous acquisitions and internal expansion. The growth left the software giant with eleven physical locations and a widely dispersed talent base. David Grenewetzki said, "We've decided to pull a number of our smaller operations into our Bellevue headquarters to achieve a critical mass of development and marketing talent into one location. These are moves that we have anticipated for a while, but we've not been able to focus on them due to the divestiture of our company. Integrating our teams to strengthen our brand and build on our on-line commitment is a strategic move that will help us continue our mission to develop and bring to market the most creative and most technologically advanced products that are fun, innovative and provide a wide range of appeal. Sierra's 1998 product lineup featured numerous hits including Caesar III from the Impressions studio, Starsiege Tribes from Dynamix and the near unanimous "Game of the Year", Half-Life, developed by Valve for Sierra Studios. Eagerly anticipated Sierra releases in 1999 include Starsiege, Homeworld, NASCAR 3 and Babylon 5. The consolidation includes Yosemite Entertainment located in Oakhurst, California; Pyrotechnix, Inc., located in Cincinnati, Ohio; Synergistic located in Renton, Washington and Books That Work, Inc., located in Palo Alto, California. Selected teams and individuals throughout the affected units will be offered positions in Bellevue as their products are transitioned to the company headquarters. All relocations are expected to be complete within the next two months. While the consolidation brings a number of Sierra's development studios into a central location, four development groups will remain in their current locations. They are Berkeley Systems, Inc., in Berkeley, California; Impressions Software, Inc. and Papyrus Software, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts; and Dynamix, Inc., in Eugene, Oregon. Sierra also announced that the current issue (Spring 1999) of InterAction Magazine will be the final issue published. According to Grenewetzki, "We started InterAction in an era when there wasn't much of a popular press devoted to computer software, but now our market is served by numerous specialty magazines that do a great job in covering our products. It's time for us to get out of the publishing business and concentrate on our principal business of developing software." Sierra On-Line, Inc. is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is comprised of six brands: Sierra Attractions, Sierra FX, Sierra Home, Sierra Sports, Sierra Studios, and Dynamix, a Sierra Company.
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© 1998 Sierra Studios, a division of Sierra On-Line, Inc. Babylon 5™ is a tradmark of Warner Bros. |
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