CA Technologies plans to take a trip down memory lane by revisiting old products and giving them a SaaS-flavoured makeover as well as building all future apps with this delivery model in mind.
The company's offerings will be re-engineered on its SaaS platform, making them more open and allowing customers to choose whether their applications are running in-house, behind the corporate firewall, or in the private or public cloud, according to CEO Mike Gregoire.
"Twenty five per cent of all app spending over the next five years will be on SaaS. We have to get a handle on all these SaaS apps that will be in our networks. This more than a technical infrastructure. It's a business model and philosophy of how we build apps. Most people think SaaS means public cloud. That is an extraordinarily shallow view of the technology," he said during the opening keynote at CA World in Las Vegas.
"Just because you made the choice in 2014 does not mean you shouldn't be able to revisit that choice in 2016... We're going to make sure you have the opportunity to do that. Every new application - and we've launched three in the last quarter already - we're building is using the CA platform. It would be extraordinarily arrogant of us to think we have the only solution."
The three applications already based on the new platform Gregoire referenced are Application Performance Management, CloudMinder and NimSoft Service Desk. "We are making a very heavy investment in this," he said. " Over time, you'll see a migration of all our products and we can put them in this environment."
We have built an awful lot of products. But, I'm not convinced we've been as good at ensuring you get value out of our products as we could have been.
All change
The plans to re-engineer products are just one of the shakeups Gregoire has unveiled since taking the reins in January this year. He joined the firm from Taleo, which was acquired by Oracle for $1.9 billion last year, replacing former head Bill McCracken who led the company for three years and retired in March this year. During his seven year tenure at Taleo, Gregoire boosted revenue from $78 million to $324 million, as well as successfully managing an IPO.
Gregoire also announced plans to try and get customers using the latest versions of its technologies. He said the professional services arm will work with clients to audit their current portfolio of products and, where applicable, upgrade them to the current release. All of this will be done for free, he claimed.
"We are a software company and we have great engineering. We have built an awful lot of products. But, I'm not convinced we've been as good at ensuring you get value out of our products as we could have been," he said.
"My number one pet peeve about the software industry is old releases. If we're going to drive this organic engine and innovate we have to get you off old releases. I want to tackle it and work with you and find a way to get you from where you are or whatever release to where we are. We're going to miss an opportunity to be your business partner and drive business value [otherwise]."
That was the, potentially, good news for enterprises and technology decision makers depending on how mission-critical current usage scenarios are. However, Gregoire also delivered some warnings and suggested CIOs and IT managers need to be on the alert and embrace, rather than fight the current and future crop of disruptive technologies.
"We experienced the transition from the mainframe to distributed computing. Now we're all experiencing the transition from distributed to cloud. With mainframe to distributed, we could see it and predict it. It was difficult but we did it," he said. "Cloud is not going to be a graceful transition. It's going to be hard, it's going to be violent and we have to deal with it."
Looking forward. And back
With a 37-year history of product creation spanning mainframe, distributed and now cloud offerings some have wondered whether CA is trying to be all things to all people and creating a future that is largely at odds with everything in its past.
The company disagrees and defended its position during a press conference.
"We develop solutions on the mainframe platform, distributed platform and cloud. This is something we believe can continue to differentiate CA from other vendors. We are aware also our solutions are leveraging the mainframe, which is considered in the market as a platform of preference. I don't think it's going away. Our commitment to delivering solutions to mainframe continues," said Marco Comastri, president and general manager for CA Technologies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
"I don't think we need to convince customers we are innovative. We will continue to play according to market needs. I don't believe the fact we deliver into mainframe, distributed and cloud is a disadvantage. I think it's an advantage."
