InformationWeek

Why? Bad marketing, says Charles Wang, president and CEO of the $6.3 billion software company, who contends that CA is better positioned than most to provide a complete E-business strategy. "E-business is integration from your Web presence to your back office," he says. "We have the right platform, and we understand the way it works. In terms of articulating that clearly, I don't think we're doing a good job yet."

Wang hopes that will change this week, when CA lays out its plan to be an E-business enabler at CA World, its annual user conference, in New Orleans. The highlights:

• Jasmineii, formerly the Intelligent Information Infrastructure, is now Jasmineii, Internet Infrastructure. CA will deliver the latest version of the software, originally conceived as a framework to integrate applications and databases, as an integrated E-business platform.

• E-business functionality in Jasmineii includes an application server, transaction server, messaging server, object request broker, publish-subscribe engine, events, naming, compression, security, encryption, and cache management, as well as support for the Extensible Markup Language, Java, and Enterprise JavaBeans. Jasmineii can run on top of the Jasmine object-oriented database or any database.

• Integration into Jasmineii of CA's neural-network technology, known as Neugents, provides predictive capabilities such as E-business modeling and dynamic Web-site personalization.

• Tools from CA's acquisition of Platinum Technology last year, including its InfoReport reporting software and Aion expert system, are integrated in Jasmineii. Also, CA will unveil integrated apps for manufacturing and supply chains, from its InterBiz and AccPacc divisions, to run on top of Jasmineii, and will develop E-commerce applications such as catalog, finance, and logistics.

And that's the point. CA's support for legacy mainframe, database, and network systems positions it perfectly for back-end integration, CA executives maintain--and the sexy new E-business suite, Jasmineii, completes the integration picture. "With this platform, you can integrate the Web presence and also all of your legacy systems," Wang says.

British shirtmaker and retailer Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts would like to combine its Web client-and-product database and back-office client-and-product database into one Jasmine database. "It just makes sense to have one database, and we see Jasmine as the best platform for this," says James Stewart, U.S. marketing manager.

Michael Dortsch, an analyst with the Robert Francis Group, says that "CA has a much better E-business and technology story to tell than it has told so far." But it better deliver, especially in light of how long it has taken

CA to finish the next-generation version of its flagship systems-and network-management product, Unicenter TND, which was supposed to be commercially available last year--CA shipped the beta just last month. "This can't be the third CA World in a row where we spend most of our time talking about how great Unicenter TND will be," Dortsch says.

It won't, CA promises. The company plans to introduce customers--including Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts and Quokka Sports Inc.--that are using the Jasmineii technology in critical E-business apps, as well as strategic partnerships with marketplace providers and application service providers.

More than 2,000 businesses have been running beta versions of Jasmineii, CA says. Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts runs its Web site on Jasmineii and the Jasmine object-oriented database. The software lets the company post special offers based on consumer preferences and make real-time adjustments to its pricing depending on stock levels and demand. "The object-oriented nature of Jasmine is excellent for this application," Stewart says. "It's providing functionality we didn't have before."

The promise of Jasmineii for sites such as Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts lies in large part in using the Neugent technology to predict the conduct of customers who shop on its Web site and in its store. The company recently used Neugents to analyze non-Web related sales data from 1995 to 1998 to see how well the technology would predict buying trends for 1999. When measured against actual 1999 results, Stewart says, the Neugents accurately predicted customer behavior about 55% of the time. "That might sound low, but it has a pro-found impact on the way we do business," Stewart says. So, for example, instead of sending marketing materials to all of its 250,000 customers, the company can better target and proactively court customers likely to become higher-volume purchasers, he says.

Quokka Sports runs applications for its Web site, Quokka.com, on Jasmineii and uses Unicenter TNG, the current version of the product, to manage its environment, says Pascal Wattiaux, senior VP of technology for the San Francisco company. Quokka .com offers real-time coverage of sports events with video footage and on-the-spot stats, such as race-car speeds. The startup controls media access and content management by integrating its content-creation apps with Jasmineii; it uses the product's workflow capabilities to manage the creation process and relies on its object database to store and catalog content.

"Data flies in from all over the world simultaneously," Wattiaux says. "We're receiving video, text E-mails, digital pictures, and even global positioning data from multiple events." Jasmineii helps Quokka.com manage those relationships. "The challenge is to find the connections among the stored content, and help with the final publishing we provide," he says.

But some observers question whether most companies need Jasmineii's advanced technology, at least right now. "They're simply trying to get their Web sites up and running and fulfill their orders," says Susan Aldrich, a senior analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group. "They know they need to get involved with the predictive business and network analysis, but many don't have the time to get into it at that level."

CA's technology offers other advantages, particularly over competitors such as Oracle, CA executives say. "We have an open solution, completely integrated, that works with anyone's database and applications," Gupta says. "Oracle tells companies to throw out what they've got and use Oracle--I don't think that story flies."

CA wants to muscle in on a market that Oracle and marketplace vendors such as Ariba Inc. are also pursuing: business-to-business exchanges. These marketplaces are expected to reach $2.71 trillion in E-commerce transactions by 2004, Gartner Group says. During his keynote speech at CA World, president Sanjay Kumar will talk about an $80 billion trading company and a large music company developing exchanges using Jasmineii, Gupta says. Marketplace OneSea.com is a collaboration of maritime companies, including Acomarit, Teekay, and World-Wide, offering online purchasing and communications systems to the $500 billion shipping industry. OneSea.com is using Jasmineii to integrate disparate partners' apps in its portal, and provide a platform for companies to build maritime apps integrated with existing systems.

The service provider market also beckons. CA has launched application service provider initiatives in the Far East with companies such as Hong Kong Telecom that want to provide hosting, operations, administration, and applications content. This week, CA will disclose that Japan's NTT Communications will offer CA's eTrust security product as an Internet service. In North America, a handful of ASPs recently contracted with CA to deliver its offerings over the Net.

CA says the small-to-midsize business market is ripe to get network management and security delivered over the Internet. But Wang says he's interested in partnering, not in becoming a hosting provider--at least for now. "We already have a lot on our plate," he says.

Among the ASP partnerships CA will unveil this week is one with Center 7 Inc. in Druper, Utah. CEO Kelly Phillipps says Center 7 will offer enterprise-and Web-management services based on Unicenter TNG to midsize businesses and dot-coms. "We're starting with TNG, but in a few months we'll begin strategizing to incorporate Jasmineii as a service."

While agreeing it's a wise move and that ASP services are a potentially lucrative market, Steve Foote, an analyst with Enswers.com, says there's risk for CA. "The challenge is for CA to swallow the ASP licensing model," he says. "CA is used to getting big money for software up front and then 18% to 20% on services. It's going to have to make the transition gently, so it doesn't upset Wall Street."

Some observers are taking a wait-and-see attitude. "I don't know how the CA message is going to play out," says Pat Dryden, an analyst with Giga Information Group. "They're saying they have all of the technology and services to make them an E-business enabler. But it takes more than a press release to make yourself a standard."