After attending CAWorld for close to a decade one thing I’ve found about the company is that it lacks style but makes up for it with substance.
This year’s CAWorld, going on this week in Las Vegas, is no different.
Take, for example, the press briefing where company COO Jeff Clarke announced that Computer Associates is changing its name to CA.
With respect to Clarke, this is hardly an announcement. The company’s show is called CAWorld. Its Website is www.ca.com, and I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the entire IT industry refers to the firm as “CA.”
But with his next breath Clarke announced Enterprise IT Management (EITN), a new integrated platform suite for IT infrastructure. With that, he says CA will release 26 new products to further the EITN vision.
So CA tried to gain some style points with the name change, but what really mattered to customers and the channel is EITN. EITN has substance because it isn’t some grandiose vapor announcement. It is not what CA will do in the future; the company is doing it today. The 26 new product are either currently shipping or will ship within the month.
Other vendors seem to enjoy conveying some long-term futurist strategy and say new product will be released for this vision in two years.
These types of announcements may win style points because the industry keeps waiting for hyped-up software. CA, on the hand, spent more than US$650 million in getting its product ready for market this year.
It has always been this way. I remember one particular CAWorld back in the late nineties in New Orleans where then-CEO Charles Wang drove his dirt bike up a ramp at then-COO Sanjay Kumar. Kumar hit the deck and Wang flew over him, crash landing into a huge IBM logo made of foam. Wang then got up, dusted himself off and delivered a keynote address launching CA ETrust security.
The stunt was at best funny and at it’s worst dangerous, but ETrust was a great product that has withstood the test of time – again substance over style.
You can say the same thing for John Swainson, the current CEO. His keynote address this week was all about substance. A British Combia native,Swainson just walked up on stage without any fanfare, cheesy skit, or flashy video. His delivery was right to the point. “CA is a company in the middle of a transformation.”
He then outlined six priorities for the upcoming year:
– Improve relationships with customers and channel partners;
– Clearly describe the product roadmap and make it available to customers and channels;
– Create a customer advisory board;
– Develop product in markets where CA can lead;
-Complete the company’s SAP ERP implementation; and
– Create a performance-based culture for innovation and achievement of goals.
Swainson wrapped up his keynote in less than an hour, which really surprised me. Almost every other vendor draws out announcements and product vision over three-plus hours. Swainson skipped the long presentation for venturing into the audience and main show floor to shake hands with practically everyone: employees, customers, partners and even the press.
This leads me to believe the substance-over-style strategy at CA will continue.
