CA Buys Job-Scheduling Software Provider Cybermation For $75 Million

CA is already the number-one seller of job scheduling software, slightly ahead of IBM, with 20.2% of the market, according to IDC. Last year, InformationWeek sister publication Network Computing ranked CA's job scheduling software first out of six products tested. With this purchase, CA hopes to bring about a new way of looking at job scheduling it calls "workload automation."

"Workload automation has to be able to schedule all units of work across the computing platform, including SOA, .Net, J2EE, etc.," says Will Bauman, CA senior VP of workload automation. He adds that the next generation of job scheduling must also be able to link in with predefined business policies to prioritize, manage, and execute jobs based on how important they are.

CA will at first sell Cybermation software as standalone products while integrating them into CA's larger portfolio of workload automation. But it hopes to eventually make Cybermation products part and parcel of more comprehensive offerings like CA's Unicenter AutoSys job management platform and its mainframe counterpart, CA-7.

CA is in the midst of long-term reforms designed to make its products and business more focused, simpler, and more customer-friendly. Integration with existing CA products is just one way CA hopes to make the Cybermation buy part of this process. Once maligned for neglecting customers, CA is trying to change its image, and Cybermation CEO Ray Nissan cites customer dedication as one reason he decided to sell to CA over other comers.