CA World: CA launches SaaS business unit

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Fresh from dipping its toes in the software as a service (SaaS) market behind the scenes earlier this year, CA has officially unveiled a new business unit and three new solutions in this space as it goes all out to make a play for its lucrative software-hungry but risk and cost averse audience.

The new SaaS line-up – Clarity PPM on demand (which quietly premiered back in April), GRC manager on demand and Instant recovery on demand – will fall under the remit of the company’s new on demand business unit, headed up by senior vice president and general manager Jules Ehrlich.

Admitting that CA’s absence in this space had historically been “detrimental”, Ehrlich said that today’s announcement – made at CA World in Las Vegas – was just the beginning of the company’s SaaS plans.

“Companies have been demanding that we deliver the software in this way and we’ve actually found ourselves counted out in many deals as we’ve come [to them] with only on-premise or a hosted deal,” he said.

“So today we are announcing our on demand business unit. You don’t just show up one day and decide on a whim that you’re going to do SaaS. Everything you do in SaaS is a little different - and in some cases a lot different - to being an on-premise vendor. The way you develop, sell, demo, contract, price, implement and support – everything has a different tone and a different set of expectations.”

Cereal giant the Kellogg Company was named as one customer already using the Clarity PPM solution in a scenario that benefited from an implementation and training period that spanned just 10 days.

The new business unit will provide SaaS-based solutions to customers thanks to three dedicated, fully-staffed datacentres around the world, according to Ehrlich.

“We are absolutely committed to this delivery model. We have made significant investment in it and, because risk passes direct to the ISV – which in this case is CA – this is not a trivial investment,” he said.

"The market opportunity for CA with our portfolio and to be able to transition into a model that provides customers with access to lower cost of ownership and transfers is just huge for us. It puts the risk where is belongs and lets people focus on usage rather than operation. It’s a very comfortable place to be.”

Click here to read more coverage from CA World 08.

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