Ultimately, CA hopes to capitalize on its claim of being able to offer true end-to-end systems management, from E-business storefronts to back-office systems, with its existing management tools and Jasmineii. What makes--or will soon make--some of CA's vision possible are the business-intelligence and data-management technologies it acquired with its purchases of Platinum Technology and Sterling Software. For instance, Platinum's Erwin database modeling technology--which converts business processes into data models for application development--and its Aion expert system and InfoReport reporting software can already be found under the hull of Jasmineii.

Still, CA unveiled a rather foggy integration road map during CA World for much of the technology it acquired from Sterling. But the company promised a demo product within 90 days after the conference, says CA president Sanjay Kumar.

CA's competitors aren't standing still in the face of the company's E-business systems-management push. According to analysts, neither BMC Software Inc. nor IBM's Tivoli Systems division is besting CA outright when it comes to managing E-business systems--but they're not far behind. Last month, for example, BMC unveiled a program that guarantees both fixed costs and its ability to meet users' deadlines for installing its systems-management products for E-business implementations. If it fails to do so, users receive a 20% rebate of professional services, and BMC incurs all service costs from the deadline date forward. Tivoli has strengthened its Cross-Site E-business management tools during the past six months.

"All of the network-management companies are quickly moving to reinvent themselves for this new E-business environment. And it's not clear yet who has the distinct advantage." says Rich Ptak, an analyst with Hurwitz Group. "It's going to be an interesting struggle during the next year to see how each continues to try to differentiate itself."

To differentiate its E-business management applications from the competition, CA is advancing its intelligent agent technology, Neugents. CA contends that the competition's predictive analysis tools can't foretell future events--whether they're business processes or network systems--the way Neugents can. Wang says Neugents will become even more critical as businesses are increasingly inundated with data, and as back offices more seamlessly integrate with Web storefronts. Yet few CA clients have begun using Neugents for predictive fault tolerance within the IT infrastructure, says Herb Vanhook, VP at the Meta Group. "It's complicated stuff to master," he says.

At Myers Industries Inc., an Akron, Ohio, plastic and rubber manufacturer, Neugents haven't made it off the manufacturing floor and onto the IT network. Myers is using Neugents to review real-time information from its process controllers and production equipment on its manufacturing systems, giving the company early warnings of potential problems before faults begin corrupting processes.

But Mike Lampner, a network administrator for Myers, says the company is strongly considering using Neugents for predictive fault analysis on its IT network. "Anything that will help us predict and head off potential network failures is welcome," he says. Myers has had a positive experience using TNG over the last year to manage its 400 desktops and 30 servers running various network operating systems, including NetWare, OS/400, Unix, and Windows NT. "We now have a better handle on what's going on in our network and our plastic injection-mold system," says Lampner.

CA is also starting to make waves in the service-provider market. It has launched application service provider initiatives across the globe, including a deal with Hong Kong Telecom to provide customers with hosting, operations, and administration using Unicenter TNG. CA also struck a deal with Japan's NTT Communications to offer its eTrust security line as an Internet service.

In the United States, CA has made arrangements with a number of ASPs, including Center 7 Inc. in Druper, Utah, to offer Unicenter TNG enterprise-and Web-management services to midsize businesses and online companies.

CA also pushed into new territory with the disclosure last month that Unicenter TNG would support Windows CE Pocket PCs and embedded systems. Unicenter TNG's extended CE support offers health monitoring and event management, asset management, virus protection, automated software delivery, and storage management for these devices.

Still, the drive behind CA's plans during the next year is to prove itself as an E-business player. Canadian dot-com startup SurfnShop enables its customers to instantly build their own Web portals, Internet sites, and virtual malls using a Web-site generation engine powered by Jasmineii. Philippe Lecoq, SurfnShop's executive VP, says he's extremely pleased with the decision to standardize on Jasmineii more than a year ago. "It has the power, flexibility, security, and scalability we needed to support the hundreds of E-retail Web sites we expect to be servicing," Lecoq says.

That's the kind of statement that brings a smile to Wang's face. "Jasmineii, that thing is unbelievable and it's going to go," he says. "It's going to go big."

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