"I'm a cheerleader. That's how I see myself," says Wang. The team he's
cheering has fought its way to the top. The only independent software
company that rivals CA in sales volume and global reach is Bill Gates's
Microsoft. The term independent refers to the fact that the company
doesn't develop products exclusively for one hardware company. For
example, though IBM's software business is bigger than CA and Microsoft
combined, IBM isn't an independent because it offers software only for IBM
machines. CA and Microsoft, on the other hand, offer software for DEC,
Wang, Prime, HP, Compaq, IBM and Apple, among others.
Thanks to the widespread use of its PC operating systems in homes and
small businesses, Microsoft has enjoyed far more visibility in the popular
media than CA whose mainstay has been corporate business. Windows's
huge success assures Microsoft's dominace in the mass software
market for years to come. CA is hardly mentioned as a potential rival to
Microsoft. In part this is due to the widely-held belief that, despite its
recent expansion toward more PC-oriented software, CA is a company built
on the backs of dynosaurs, the mainframes being displaced by PCs.
This distinction among the various levels of hardware annoys Wang.
"Software is software," he insists. "What we called a mainframe or
minicomputer three years ago is today sitting on your desk. Used to be we
considered a PC or a micro an 8-bit machine and a mini a 16-bit machine
and the mainframe, 32-bits. Today we have 32-bit PCs sitting on your
desk. The most important aspect of our business is giving [our clients] the
solutions. Many times our product is a combination of a piece that sits on
the mainframe, some of it being distributed to a PC or into a network or
into a minicomputer called a VAX. For example, a product like Netman
that runs on a PC will also run on a mini, will also run on a mainframe."
Wang has embraced the shift toward PCs. "It's a wonderful thing because
it's bringing the computer closer and closer to the actual end user, and
we're a part of that, helping that trend by downloading a lot of the things
that people are doing on the mainframe onto PCs and minis."
If Bill Gates and Microsoft can be seen as the publisher of an occasional
blockbuster best-seller, then CA is the publisher of a full line of textbooks
-- unexcting but essential for the business world which depends on
reliable, well-supported software. It's litlte wonder that, outside of
hardcore trade journals, Bill Gates has gotten all the ink and Charles Wang
has been neglected. From a business standpoint, there has been little
reason for Wang to place himself in the public eye. In many respects, the
two companies have been complementary, like two pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle.
"We're about the same size right now," says Wang. "They're growing faster
now [because of Windows]. If you look at the current 12-month period,
when we announce results, they may even be bigger. And it's tremendous
for the industry. God bless Bill Gates, who I've met many times. It's great.
It's the greatest thing that could happen."
[CONTINUED BELOW]
Wang flatly denies any rivalry with Gates. "He's into micro more. His base
is really the operating system, the language. Microsoft has MS DOS and
now Windows. On huge hit. Lotus has 1-2-3 -- one huge hit. CA doesn't
have one hit; CA has a breadth of the product line. We have many niche
vendors as competitors."
Yet a clash between the giants seems inevitable by the decade's end --
a fact of which Wang is no doubt well aware. CA will have to invade the
other's PC domain to survive and prosper.
Within a few years the power and capacity of inexpensive, versatile and ultra-fast seventh-generation
PCs will be handling the routine needs of all but a tiny fraction of all
businesses. What was once a three-tiered industry will have collapsed
into one, forcing the giants into the same arena. More
and more of the functions provided by the specialized systems and
applications software that CA is selling its corporate clients are being
incorporated into basic systems and applications packages being developed
for PC users. CA must stretch to maintain its current business while
carving itself a piece of the new PC application action.
"There is more growth area for us in the application area because that's
more untapped," says Wang. "Both are important to us because system is
where we started. They're not so easily separable. For example, in
applications, you also have to have security and things like that which
calls the system component that we have on the system side."
For Microsoft each new PC operating system is a huge gamble. A dud or a
misstep could doom it to playing catchup to an aggressor, a situation that
could be fatal for a big company with a massive overhead. Microsoft too
must make applications a far bigger part of its business if it is to stay on
top. For the time being, though, the two giants are eyeing each other from
what is still a comfortable gulf while battling their own particular
nemeses.
Having turned over the day to day running of the company to Tony,
Charles Wang spends much of his time traveling among the two dozen
countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia where CA
maintains principal offices. Half of the company's revenues is
international, with 80% of that coming from western Europe. France,
Italy, Germany and the UK are its top markets outside the U.S. CA's newer
Pacific Rim division has offices in Japan, Corea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and
Singapore. Though CA does some local software development in Japan,
Singapore and western Europe, all its international offices are
wholly-owned subsidiaries. In South America CA markets through
independent distributors.
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