The Australian perspective
What is special about CA's licensing options in Australia?
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.
