Having turned itself around financially, business software giant CA has said it intends to beat the credit crunch and downturn blues by enabling cost-conscious businesses to do likewise.
CA, which employs 5,300 developers worldwide and has 14pc of the global enterprise IT management market, in recent years became embroiled in a SEC probe over accounting irregularities and in 2006 saw former chief executive Sanjay Kumar jailed for 12 years.
In the intervening years, CA has managed to turn its fortunes around and has just announced its sixth quarter of growth. For the last fiscal year ended in March, the company reported global revenues of US$4.3bn, up from US$3.9bn a year earlier.
CA Ireland country manager Frank Kennedy told siliconrepublic.com the company is now focused on helping CIOs control costs and improve IT efficiency.
He said as CIOs cut back on spending on hardware and other technologies, the one area that won’t suffer will be technologies which reduce IT operating costs.
Kennedy also compared the US$1.5bn CA spent acquiring companies in the past three years to boost its enterprise IT portfolio with a corresponding US$18bn spent by companies like HP, Oracle and BMC on similar strategies.
He said CA intends to buck the downturn by delivering technologies businesses will use to reduce costs and complexity in their organisation.
On Monday, the company unveiled eight products which cover the areas of security, compliance, enterprise IT management, ID management, systems management and automation.
“As we go into a downturn, businesses will be focused on reducing costs and complexity in their organisation. A cautious market plays into CA’s hands,” Kennedy said.
He cited the Wily Application Performance Toolset that allows organisations to look at key business applications and drive better performance.
“When money is tight firms should be looking at spending smaller sums, optimising applications and removing the need for hardware investment. The best firms use the downturn as a way of making themselves more efficient.
“The reality is we’ve unleashed a whole new suite of products aimed at helping firms buck the downturn.”
As a way of highlighting the impact of the current credit crunch on business spending on IT, Kennedy cited a recent deal his company struck with a prominent Irish financial institution. “The company bought our application performance toolset and said that was the only IT deal they would be doing that quarter.
“The fact is times are tough. Non-critical spending has slowed down and the approval process is taking longer. It’s a tough situation but the better companies spend wisely now to get better.
“That will always be the case. People who pull in, stop spending and batten down the hatches will find themselves in a cold environment, whereas the guys who continued to spend on the tools to manage their business better will be streets ahead,” Kennedy added.
By John Kennedy
