InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

InformationWeek: You make a very compelling case about supporting multiple platforms, integrating the back end and, clearly, everyone sees that's where it has to go. My question for CA -- was this luck on your part or was this a strategy that you sat down and said, OK, we're going to support multiple platforms, we're going to integrate the back end with the Web front end and have that as our strategy?

Wang: If I said luck on our part, you'll say, oh, well, he's a lucky bastard -- boy did they step in it. We planned it all out -- it's a lie, probably. I think what you should look at, though, is that this is a continuation of our strategy. We have opportunities of buying many platforms; we turn them all down because one of the things we recognized very early is that there's going to be more and more platforms. Three years ago, who would have guessed Linux would be here? It's going to be a major player and so forth -- and who would have guessed it? If you had read all the market research, you would think today it should be an OS2 world -- you remember, right? There's no question about it. Every research organization said that's the one, that's the top standard. They also said SA would be the system standard. But it's not. So we recognized very early - -we said, look, where we can make a difference without providing a platform is in the area of basically a heterogeneous look at the whole IT infrastructure, which includes Web presence all the way to the back office. That's our philosophy, and then this is just a natural outgrowth of it. Where the infrastructure is the most important thing and we've always had that piece that's in the middle -- now we're naming it, we're selling it, and so forth. It used to be called CA90, if you remember way back. This is just a continuation of CA90, really -- just the infrastructure or the platform that brings it all together.

I was the only idiot out there saying mainframe is not dead, and you guys were writing mainframe is dead. BusinessWeek: Mainframe is dead. And I said no. And everybody said, "Charles, you're only saying that because you have more mainframe software." Today we have more distributed software than mainframe software. We crossed the 50% mark.

InformationWeek: So how do you get that message out? Do you have a CA sock puppet or -- ?

Wang: You think it will work? Can I borrow it? At the company we have a market cap of $300 billion, right? Instead, our multiple is less than ADP's and CSC's and all this, right? So we're not doing a good job of it. I wish I had the answer. I don't. I think it's part of going at this thing, making sure people understand what we do and showing success. I think ultimately we're not going to out PR some of these companies. We're not. So what I have to do, basically, is to show success -- I'll bring you to clients, show you what they're doing. I'll show you real success.

InformationWeek: Across the Internet, we're seeing Extensible Markup Language emerge as a standard for sharing data between applications. Do you see that as a threat to your positioning the company as a way of integrating?

Wang: Not even close. XML is a nice language, one way of many different ways of integration. It's almost like saying, well, we see C++ as a way of really producing neat software. Yes, it can be used. It really is how you do it in terms of what are the sources of data, how you get to it. We support XML, Java, and Enterprise JavaBeans. There are going to be many, many different standards. It's just as much as we think that Windows is it, for example -- how do you address Linux? So I think what you've got to have is the kind of platform that allows you to be flexible enough to bring on new standards, changes -- some of them may not even be standards, just new technology. One of the things we see is the coming new interfaces to technology -- voice is going to be an important piece of pie. OK, now you've got the visualization getting better and better but voice is going to be it -- and especially when you look at all the devices bringing the computer telephone, the convergence telephone, computers, all these different Web TVs, and all of these different ways of doing it. And it will continue, so it's very important that you have the right platform that can incorporate all these things.

InformationWeek: How well positioned is CA to take advantage of the growing mobile E-commerce movement, the wireless E-commerce movement?

Wang: We're working, for example, with Symbol very closely, and as you know they have their Spectrum 24, the wireless standard they propose and so forth with many, many different ventures going on. For example, we have a joint venture with the Italian post office. It sounds strange, but we have it. We're instrumenting, for example, all their trucks and things so that they know where they are.

Ultimately, it's all going to go wireless from the home all the way through to offices and enterprises. My wife won't let me drill another hole in the wall. No more cables. And how are you going to retrofit all the old buildings and more real estate that's not fiber-optically enabled? It's going to go wireless more and more as the technology moves. It's going to go wireless. We are there. For example, this top floor here is all wirelessly enabled so that, for example any of the people -- and this is all with Symbol -- can go anywhere and you just start, you're on the Internet or the intranet.

InformationWeek: When you say working with Symbol Technology, what does that mean? Does that mean sharing resources or ...

Wang: Sharing resources, working with them. We have a great partnership -- they're just down the street, they're two, three minutes from here at Exit 62, and I sit on their board, by the way. It's the only board I sit on outside. Well, no -- the joint venture with Hong Kong Telecom, I sit on that board, too. But that's it. So we're working together -- it means we have technical people that work together in the sense that we're doing software infrastructure, they do the technology, very closely together.

InformationWeek: Do you see a service-based model to apply for network-management services in the future?

Wang: Absolutely. Absolutely.

InformationWeek: How far off do you see that?

Wang: We're probably going to be announcing a lot this year because we're in the midst of negotiating and doing quite a few of them.

InformationWeek: So, at CA World, will there by any motorcycle stunts this year?

Wang: Oh, you will be so shocked. I am going to -- and this I can tell you. I'm just going to come out on stage: Here I am.