ZDNet Australia's Technology & Business magazine spoke with John Ruthven, managing director of Computer Associates Australia, about what the chameleon-like company is really all about.

T&B: Computer Associates has spent a lot of the past 12 months "redefining" itself. In 25 words or less, what is CA?

Ruthven: CA is an organisation that develops, sells and implements software that manages eBusiness, which includes a company's infrastructure, the information and the business processes.

Current television ads for CA in Australia seem to portray the company as security-orientated. Is this the main focus?

Security is one of the six focus areas of CA, within our 3x6 strategy, which is aimed at simplifying our messaging in the market.

Key to this messaging is that we are the only genuine end-to-end security software provider--that is, mainframe to desktop. We have seen an increase in demand for our eTrust solutions as Australian organisations have put more emphasis on security, for a multitude of reasons.

How would you describe CA's commitment to Linux?

Our strategy strongly positions CA as the leader in making Linux successful in both distributed and mainframe environments.

We have delivered the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of solutions to manage, secure, preserve, and integrate Linux in the heterogeneous enterprise.

CA's goal is to provide complete enterprise management of an environment. Demonstrating this commitment we have over 50 solutions for both the mainframe and distributed Linux implementations.

Other vendors might have something to say about who is actually the leader in making Linux successful. How does CA's line of Linux products differ from those of BMC and IBM's Tivoli?

Our Linux strategy meets the challenges, issues, and requirements associated with implementing Linux in the heterogeneous enterprise.

As I mentioned before, the strategy strongly positions CA as the leader in making Linux successful in both distributed and mainframe environments. CA's solutions for both platforms fall into three areas:

1. Managing the Linux operating system environment-CA's Linux Management solutions focus on all aspects of managing Linux, including systems, networks, databases, and applications. These solutions fall under CA's Unicenter brand.

2. Securing and preserving data, applications and systems to minimise risk in Linux implementations-this aspect of CA Linux solutions focuses on the need to maintain high availability and security for Linux platforms.

3. Integrating Linux Web environments within the heterogeneous enterprise-CA technology enables organisations with Linux-based environments to develop, manage and view critical enterprise information.

Different business model?

CA's CEO Sanjay Kumar has said that the company's business model is very different than that of competitors. Can you briefly explain that model as it pertains to the Australian market?

Our business model is much more than just a new way of licensing our software--it is a new way of doing business. Core to this model is a relentless focus on the customer, to ensure that the solutions they have or procure from us in the future deliver value--through being well implemented with their users trained.

It is about providing flexibility for our clients in terms of how the technology is procured and implemented. In some sense it is unlocking the extensive value of CA to our clients.

Ken Fitzpatrick, chief marketing officer at CA, has portrayed the company as the United Nations of software. What does this mean?

With over 1200 products across a broad range of functionality, CA has more kinds of software solutions than any other vendor. We are platform independent and we partner very strongly with most of the key players in the industry.

It basically reflects on our open standards technology, whether you run NT, Netware, Linux, or Unix, or a combination of platforms (which is quite common), CA can manage your environment.

Fitzpatrick has also vowed that the one thing the company will do better is communicate. How has the company failed to communicate in the past, and why? What is the message CA needs to communicate to the Australian market?

Communication was something that we needed to improve. We have over 1200 products. Our challenges in the past have been communicating clearly the value of our entire and complex portfolio.

The rebranding of our solutions into six sub-brands has helped simplify our messaging. We are no longer looking to be everything to everyone.

We have a very clear focus in six spaces: eTrust for Security, BrightStor for Storage, Unicenter for Enterprise Management, CleverPath for Portal and Business Intelligence, Advantage for Application Development, and AllFusion for Application Lifecycle Management.

The message we want to communicate to the Australian market is that CA is driving to deliver value and leadership in these six spaces. We offer leading technology in these core areas to help deliver value to our clients and we want to hold the number one or two market position in each of these focus areas.

Currently, what is CA's flagship product for the corporate customer? What will it be in two year's time?

In Australia and New Zealand, Unicenter continues to be the most significant revenue contributor. We have been in this market space for a long time and are the market leader--both in share and functionality.

We continue to see strong demand for service desk, asset management, service level management, scheduling, and other solutions that fall within the Unicenter brand.

Looking forward it is hard to predict, but CA is in a great position to continue to forge ahead and see dominant growth in the areas of Security and Storage, fueled by market demand.

Our services capability coupled with an extensive application development suite means you will see some exciting growth for us in this area and more and more companies are turning to CA for change and configuration management as well as portal and business intelligence.

That said, I believe you will see a more consistent revenue contribution across our six focus areas as we maintain or gain market leadership in these areas.

The Australian perspective

The licensing model is consistent with our global licensing model, but what is exciting is the flexibility we provide through our new business model. With subscription or term licences, customers can choose what suits their needs best.

In fact, with subscription-type licensing, clients can take on products at very low risk and ensure it meets their needs by effectively trialing them.

Market acceptance in Australia and New Zealand since we introduced this has been fantastic--in fact since we introduced it we have seen take increase quarter-on-quarter by 50 percent. The exciting thing is that it has appeal to both existing and brand new customers.

CA has a large staff working on R&D in Australia. What is the focus of that R&D?

We have R&D facilities in Melbourne and in Sydney. Our two labs in Melbourne focus on the development of some of our security solutions.

In fact, 20 percent of all our security development is based in Australia. Our development efforts locally are focused in the areas of directories, antivirus, and PKI.

In Sydney we have development projects for some of our networking products for the mainframe environment. In total we have 150 development staff in Australia.

What has local R&D developed that has been used by CA worldwide?

All of our development effort locally is part of our worldwide R&D strategy and has been a strong contributor to the worldwide products we take to market.

We have great skills locally and in fact our development presence has increased significantly since we first established a development presence in January 1999.

A couple of great Australian success stories have been our antivirus and directories products.

Most analysts are still cautious about the outlook for IT spending in the coming year. What do you think will be the areas least affected by doom and gloom? (Or, what do you think will be the growth areas?)

Demand for our products has remained constant as we have the advantage that many of our solutions are mission-critical, not "nice to haves".

Market indications are that security and storage spend will remain strong. Components of the enterprise management space are also gaining momentum.

Our change to a "modular" approach with Unicenter has us well positioned here. Interestingly, applications development for us is growing and change and configuration management is becoming more and more critical for large data-centric clients.

Enterprise issues

What security issue should be uppermost in the mind of the enterprise customer?

While viruses, hacking and internal breaches continue to dominate the headlines in the security market, we see that the need to have sound security policies within an organisation is essential.

The need to educate the users and enforce security policies is an area with increased focus. It is about protecting your environment and creating awareness of the possible threats that exist and being more proactive.

In CA's experience what is the biggest mistake most Australian companies make in planning their e-business solutions?

One of the mistakes that most organisations make when planning their e-business model is in the area of integration and resourcing. When looking at implementing an eBusiness component to your current business model, leverage off your organisation's strengths.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel from a technology perspective. Use the legacy systems that have been running your business for the last 10 years, use the new CRM system you just implemented, leverage your existing customer base. One of the keys to success is the integration of your eBusiness into your current business processes. That is a common mistake.

Resourcing is also an area that typically is not planned as well as it should be. It is important to develop a comprehensive project plan to properly support your ebusiness objectives.

If the eBusiness is going to become a core component and successful component of your business, you will need to have dedicated resources.

This may mean redeployment of current resources or hiring additional resources. Whatever the case, planning is the key. Understand what your resource needs are today and will be tomorrow to keep your ebusiness reliable, available, and scalable.

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