CA Technologies partner sales senior director, Carl Terrantroy, told ARN that the company is moving to focus on its Mobile Device Management (MDM) software suite and related products to match the rapid change of the market place.
Terrantroy believes that the next major growth in the technology economy will be in apps, which is rapidly moving beyond the domain of the technology companies, and is becoming an economy of its own.
“Bank of America, for example, now do more software development than Microsoft,” he said.
In the last quarter, more Internet traffic came from mobile phones than from desktops – and 80 per cent of that came through apps, according to Terrantroy. Apps are becoming the main source of software.
As a result, CA Technologies would be expanding beyond its systems software background (such as mainframes) to focus on its virtual machine, Cloud and MDM software, all of which are deeply integrated in the modern mobile-centric web.
CA has released some 15 mobile products in the last year as part of this push.
In June, it will be launching its star product, the Mobile DevOps suite, to go along with the company’s original DevOps suite. The philosophy is to combine development and operations from the beginning of any product development, which makes sense in the mobile app development environment. Terrantroy claims it will see development with “both speed, and quality.”
This API level of engagement will be the key link as Mobile DevOps uses an appliance model – bolt on features as you will. With it the company will be appropriating a utility licensing model, and continuous release cycles. Application performance management and testing will be built into the product.
He boasts that Mobile DevOps will be able to take the average 50-day dev using old systems, down to two hours using CA’s. Terrantroy describes CA as ‘world leading’ in this space, and it was well received at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
As part of the push of the new product, CA is also restructuring its go-to-market. Whereas five years ago the company preferred to go direct to user, it is now pursuing channel partners that fit its mobile and Cloud-first agenda.
Terrantroy would not be drawn on who the company had been engaging with, but said there were 10 key companies with which he had spoken.
The new CA partner team consists of seven staffers across A/NZ, with two new hires in 2013. The company is currently looking for a new architect in New Zealand, and ideally he wants to see the team round out at around 10 staff total.
The company has 35 datacentres across APJ, which allows it to provide a variety of Cloud solutions to local consumers to suit their needs.
CA Technologies has already announced alliances with companies such as Sentia, Deloitte, HP and Accenture. It is currently working with a further partners go-to-market, each of which specialise in different areas.
The company has been at pains to be as collaborative with its partners as possible, allowing them access to all the company’s whitepapers from overseas, and other measures, such as allowing local sellers access to its US Salesforce database, and whitelisting tools, which also helps for local marketing teams.
CA is also looking to boost its reseller community ties by holding 30 events this financial year, where it allows partners to network and look at reference case studies and solutions, to help better understand its products.
[Update: CA says that Mobile DevOps did not win any awards at MWC]
