Computer Associates Monday said it plans to invest $24
million on equipment and marketing to sell storage and security software to
small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) in Europe, Middle East & Africa
(EMEA).
The Islandia, N.Y., management software maker will offer BrightStor ARCserve
Backup for back-up, eTrust Antivirus to squash viruses, Unicenter Desktop
DNA for desktop migration and eTrust PestPatrol anti-spyware through its
17,000 partners in EMEA.
The hub of the new push will be a new $20 million Customer Interaction
Center in Barcelona, Spain, slated to open later this month, according to a
statement. CIC will employ more than 100 multilingual people who will target
new SMB customers and coordinate technical support for partners via an IT
infrastructure.
Trying to clean up its image after a series of accounting improprieties
committed under the previous administration, CA plans to support
its SMB push with a $4 million pan-European marketing and advertising
campaign. It will target SMBs with the message that it can deliver “total
protection” of their IT environment.
The software bundle for SMBs is one of a three-pronged attack to garner more
EMEA market share, the company said. In addition to extending to the SMB
market, CA plans to expand its $1 billion annual EMEA revenues with deeper
penetration of the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe, and increased
business with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
The move is part of a larger plan to broaden the company’s revenue streams,
as it seeks to better compete with rivals IBM,
BMC Software
and other makers of software
that helps ensure smooth computer system operations.
“We already have an established foothold in the SMB market with products
such as BrightStor ARCserve Backup, so we’re confident that with this
increased focus and investment, we will see a significant boost in revenues
and market share,” said Hayley Tabor, CA’s senior vice president and general
manager, EMEA, in a statement.
CA has installed a lead management and distribution system for CIC and
partner sales staff to provide resellers with fast, direct access to sales
leads. The company is also planning a global software development group to
support the EMEA region.
In other CA news, the company has also revamped its software products.
It rolled out Unicenter Database Management r11 for DB2 for
z/OS (DB2), an application that boosts the performance of mainframe database
software from IBM.
The new version adds support for DB2 for z/OS v8 and more than 70
customer-requested enhancements for managing large and complex DB2
environments. The product improves database administration, performance
management and backup and recovery.