TMW: CA stays in telecom mix

As software giants such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM have renewed their interest in the telecom industry recently through acquisitions and new offerings, 30-year-old enterprise software firm CA doesn’t think it should be left out of such an esteemed grouping.

The Islandia, N.Y.-company formerly known as Computer Associates International has been just as busy as those other firms in building its telecom portfolio over the last two years, according to Norman Rice, vice president and general manager of CA’s Communications, Media & Entertainment worldwide business unit. In April 2005, CA acquired network management firm Concord Communication, not long after that company itself had acquired Aprisma, a specialist in root cause analysis. In January this year, CA announced its acquisition of service management vendor Wily Technology.

These acquisitions have been matched with some expertise from firms CA concurrently acquired in the IT industry, such as Control F1, to form the CME unit that Rice runs. “People in the telecom industry traditionally don’t look to CA,” Rice said at last week’s TeleManagement World Americas conference and expo. “But the level of competition now in this industry makes it important for us to show that we’re here and here to stay.”

Rice knows CA still has a lot to prove. The company went through layoffs and restructuring in 2005, and “critics said after we made our acquisitions that we wouldn’t innovate,” he said, adding that CA is putting that criticism to rest by introducing newly enhanced products like the Wily Introscope 7.1 platform last month.

CA’s Wily division also recently was chosen to participate in the TeleManagement Forum’s AVIS Catalyst project last week. Verizon Business also discussed at the show how it is using CA’s eHealth management platform, which came to CA via the Concord acquisition.

It may take more than that to convince some of the smaller network management specialists operating in the shadows of CA and it’s bigger brethren. Craig Nichols, president and CEO of Visionael, said at the TMW event. “To me, big companies coming in validate the space, but will a company like Oracle or the others stay committed to this segment? I think they have a vision that everyone will buy from one or two big software companies in the market, but service providers wouldn’t appreciate that.”