We’ve got a pair of updates on Seattle tech companies reshuffling their offices—one moving to a new space, and another shutting down an overseas office.
—Attachmate, a Seattle software icon, is relocating its headquarters from the west side of Lake Union to the Union Station complex, nestled between the International District and the Seahawks and Mariners stadiums (and maybe an NBA arena!).
Attachmate, which helps businesses manage and deliver IT services, says the move will begin in early 2013. Attachmate has been at its old headquarters for nearly 20 years, and says the new location will offer a better environment for employees along with a host of transportation options.
That last bit stands out in particular because of the ongoing construction around the freeway onramps on nearby Mercer Street, a multi-year project intended to straighten out the intersection known to rueful commuters as the Mercer Mess. There’s also a ton of construction going on in nearby South Lake Union, although Attachmate is a bit isolated from the action there.
Attachmate is a relatively quiet company in the public eye, owing to its enterprise customer base and its private investment group owners. But it makes big news from time to time: In late 2010, Attachmate agreed to buy Boston-area software legend Novell for $2.2 billion.
—PopCap Games, part of mega video game publisher Electronic Arts following last year’s multimillion-dollar acquisition, has decided to close down its Dublin, Ireland studio.
The move was not a surprise. PopCap co-founder Jon Vechey announced last month that the casual games publisher was laying off 50 people, most of them at Seattle headquarters, and reviewing the Dublin operation to see if it could be sustained.
This week, PopCap is quietly confirming that it will indeed close the Irish office, laying off 96 people. In a statement, the company says some workers “have offers in other parts of PopCap, at EA or new opportunities with technology partners in Ireland.” PopCap also notes that EA in particular is expanding its customer service center in Galway, Ireland.
In his previous blog post about the layoffs, Vechey said the decisions were made by PopCap leaders without pressure from the corporate parents at EA. Vechey pointed generally to the shifting business models in the video games business, and said the Dublin operation had to find a path to become more profitable if it had hopes of staying open.
