January 26, 1998 Wireless, Predictive Features Near For TNG Unicenter enhancements come amid slower client-server revenue growth for CA By Caryn Gillooly omputer Associates last week elaborated on plans to integrate wireless and neural networking technology into its Unicenter TNG enterprise-management software. But while Unicenter continues to be a growth engine for CA, the company's third-quarter financial report indicates that its client-server revenue growth has actually been slowing. Under ROAM (Remote Operations, Administration, and Management), CA is user-testing handheld TNG devices connected via wireless technology. "This way, the person fixing the problem actually has the Unicenter console in his or her hand," says Yogesh Gupta, senior VP of technology deve lopment at CA. Also close to completion is a performance agent for TNG, based on technology CA acquired in its recent purchase of AIWare, to perform predictive analysis on enterprise operations. CA, which already uses the agent internally, was able to predict a slowdown on its Web server, Gupta says. In another instance, the agent predicted correctly that the company's Microsoft Exchange E-mail system would go down. The agent, he says, could be available as early as this summer. TNG customer Allegiance Corp. is interested in the predictive capability. "If they can keep track of end-user response time, that would be a big benefit to us. We do that by hand now," says Tony Navarro, manager of systems management at the McGaw Park, Ill., health-care-products supplier. While Allegiance has looked at other performance-management tools, and already has some tuning tools, tying everything into TNG is preferable, Navarro says. CA also reported last week that its client-server business, which had been growin g more than 50% year-on-year, grew only 28% in the third quarter. CA's mainframe business, where growth had slowed to single digits, increased 11%. "Most investors bought CA stock for client-server revenue, and people got concerned that the client-server business might be slowing," says Chris Mortenson, an analyst at Alex. Brown & Co., adding, "I'm assuming things will get back on track in the March quarter." CA reported that its third-quarter net income was up 19% over a year ago, to $339.9 million, on 18% higher revenue of $1.2 billion. Back to News in Review Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page

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