RE:RE:RE:Changes to Board of Directors and Executive LeadershipTrilogy Software started as an enterprise software company, and went through a number of iterations before ending up in its current format focused on automative sector. The other parts of the company eventually ended up mostly in Versata Software, also a part of ESW Capital's "family", and minor parts or ex-Trilogians in other software firms related to the family. The group you see here: Danielle Royston, Andrew Price, Christy Jones, Scott Brighton, all got their start in Trilogy's peak in the late '90s and early 2000s and were all very close to CEO Joe Liemandt, who founded the firm. ESW is essentially the holding firm for Joe.
Trilogy (and by this I mean the entire set of Joe Liemandt-related companies) had the reputation of being very smart (which they are) but also arrogant (which they were) and more than once in their history have been schooled ( and hard ) by more experienced companies in the sectors they tried to operate. I don't have a high opinion of Royston, but since they are still around after more than 20 years, clearly they are capable of learning and adapting.
Redknee looks to be one of ESW's larger acquisitions, both in terms of revenue, global reach and employee base, so it'll be interesting to see if they are able to manage the company. The industry in which Redknee operates is also very different than other enterprise software in which this group has experience. To the extent they have telecom operator experience, this would be on the customer and sales / marketing side. Redknee's systems need to be accepted by both customer-facing and network engineering. I don't think they fully appreciate what this means. If Lucas, who has been immersed in this industry since his undergrad days, found it hard to make a go, I have extreme doubts about this group.
FactsRBest on this board is deeply sceptical about ESW's intentions, and he may be right. Versata has a controversial history, and Liemandt is a shark. However, even if all they intend to do is loot the company, I don't see how it can be done (with ESW making a return on their $80M USD investment) without somehow raising RKN's market value. Why any other investor would buy into a capital raise in a sufficient amount for ESW to earn a return at RKN's current stage is beyond me.
My thoughts.
janeintoronto wrote: Trilogy Software seems to be in the car selling business. Do you thing these people are qualified to run RKN? In a later message you said you worked at RKN. We would like very much to hear what you have to say. The recent conference call was not too encouraging...something about +ve cash flow being [only] a goal... I have not sold my very small holding - just too interesting a drama!