Computer Associates International Inc may have reported $163m profits on $1,501m for the year to March 31, but it has lost that incredible impetus for growth that made it a star of the 1980s, according to The New York Times. It is the slowdown in the mainframe market and the need to refocus that has forced the Islandia, New York company’s hand and made it necessary to move from its traditional mainframe base to multi-vendor distributed and stand-alone systems. Analysts say that Computer Associates may have difficulties making this migration since the company is renowned not for its innovative research and development skills, but its ability to make clever acquisitions.

Muscles

At the same time as the mainframe market is contracting, existing users are flexing their muscles over mainframe software pricing, saying that Computer Associates and its ilk have milked the user community for long enough with unfair licences and erratic price hikes. Also, Computer Associates has acquired so many companies in recent years that users have a limited choice of supplier and are more closely tied to the company than they would wish. However, simply by virtue of being the largest supplier, Computer Associates may be bearing more than its fair share of user discontent, and some analysts are impressed by moves to reduce its mainframe dependency. At the same time, it has led the field in reviewing prices and in April, introduced five new pricing plans that provide users with more flexibility. In terms of being more open, the company has agreed to make available to developers, consultants and resellers the proprietary elements of its software architecture, CA90s. For the first first time, the company will share with a client a CA90s Application Programming Interface. The client, Cigna Inc, is using the interface to build its own production control application integrated with other CA90s-based systems management products. Also, Computer Associates has announced a number of CA90s-related developments including partnership programmes, strategic alliances, expanded technologies and number of new products. The Development Partner Programme will enable third party developers to build CA90s-based software, which Computer Associates will then help market. Under the auspices of the Consultant Relations Programme, the company will offer additional professional service to clients to help implement CA90s-based software and the Business Partner Programme will see Computer Associates supporting use of CA90s components by value-added resellers. New alliances include a relationship with Novell Inc whereby Computer Associates will offer CA-Unicenter for NetWare, providing networked personal computers with the same systems management tools available for the mainframe, VAX/VMS and Unix systems.

By Janice McGinn

CA-Unicenter for NetWare includes security control and system administration; work load management; report distribution control; automated storage management; spool and print management; and help desk and problem management. Computer Associates says that CA-Unicenter is specifically engineered exploit NetWare’s features and functionality, including NetWare Loadable Modules, 32-bit addressing, the IPX/SPX communication protocol and bindery services. Also, the company’s systems management products are to be made compliant with IBM’s OS/2 Distributed Systems Management for local area networked environments. In the field of expanded technologies, Viewpoint, a user interface technology for Computer Associates’ systems management product, enables users to build their own ViewPoint applications and integrate them with the company’s ViewPoint applications. Cigna’s partnering with Computer Associates to use this application interface integrates Cigna applications with CA-7, an automated scheduling system, and CA-Dispatch, a report distribution system. ViewPoint 2.0 provides additional integration with ISPF/TSO as well as extended file manager capabilities, and Pigware facilities from Computer Associates Product Integration Group are now available to Comput

er Associates clients, providing access to system information gathered and used by CA90s services. Pigware facilities are free to all licensed Computer Associates systems management users. New products include CA-7 for AS/400. This is an automated scheduling system that stores workload information and automates production job processing, improves throughput, productivity and reduces manual intervention. CA-7 for AS/400 extends production control automation in the multi-environments which include MVS, VSE, VM, VMS, Unix and AS/400. CA-RSVP is a storage reporting facility for MVS that uses VTOC – the Volume Table of Contents area of a disk for storing an index of non-VSAM data sets, System Catalogues, IBM Corp’s SMS Constructs and CDS, VSAM, CA-1, CA-Dynam/TLMS and CA-ASM2 catalogues as input sources for its reports. CA-RSVP provides pre-processing capabilities and disk billing with generation of billing files and rate calculations. CA-Examine/PC is an auditing tool to provide systems managers with an automatic method for identification of personal computer hardware and software inventory.

Boolean

Integration with CA-Netman provides centralised, detailed information for managing hardware and software assets. CA-Dynam/TLMSViewPoint is a new facility that enhances the user interface for clients of the CA-Dynam/TLMS tape management system by taking windows to the mainframe. It provides the ability to mask selection fields, perform Boolean selection criteria, and to integrate seamlessly with other Computer Associates’ offerings. CA-APCDOC/ViewPoint MVS is a windowed, object-oriented interface said to enhance user ability to control and organise activities using Computer Associates’ centralised documentation system. Through a common look and feel with other Computer Associates products and a windowed interface, users can view documentation and perform simultaneous tasks quickly and efficiently. CA-Dynam/TLMS/CopyCat enables users to manage tape media conversions, consolidation and stacking and replacement operations while ensuring data integrity. It facilitates electronic vaulting and enables the electronic ejection for tapes.