CA Ups Ante With New Distribution Agreements

The enterprise distributor, formerly known as GE Access, announced that it will begin carrying CA's eTrust security management, BrightStor storage management and Unicenter operations management software to authorized Enterprise Solution partners in the United States. The software company's products will be managed under Access Distribution's Enterprise Solutions Group, which covers networking, storage and security solutions that complement the Sun Microsystems platform, the distributor's biggest vendor.

"We're excited about the potential for this alliance, and we see CA becoming one of our top vendors right out of the gate," says Grant Hunter, vice president of Access Distribution's Enterprise Solutions Group. "The Unicenter product line in particular fits perfectly with our Sun business. There's a logical fit between the two because we've never had a product quite like Unicenter before."

Hunter says the distributor is looking at possible joint marketing and training opportunities with Sun and CA concerning Unicenter on the computer maker's machines. Of the three product lines, however, Hunter said eTrust may make the biggest impact early on because of the rising interest in enterprise security solutions. Access Distribution has been working on steadily increasing its security offering, adding McAfee and F5 Networks to its line card over the summer.

BrightStor is perhaps the most interesting addition for the distributor because CA's storage management software competes with Veritas, which is another top vendor for the Westminster, Colo.-based company. Hunter says there may be some overlap between CA and Veritas in the storage software market, but thinks there is plenty of room for BrightStor to win new business that won't interfere with existing Veritas accounts.

"We don't expect it to cause much friction with Veritas," Hunter says. "We've talked with [Veritas channel vice president] Mike Sotnick about this agreement, and Veritas will continue to be one of our top vendors."

In addition to Access Distribution, CA expanded its existing agreement with Ingram Micro by introducing CA's eTrust Vulnerability Manager r8 to the broadline distributor. The new product, which is a rack-mountable security management appliance, complements Ingram Micro's CA portfolio, which includes CA storage management, security management and network/desktop management solutions. The appliance combines vulnerability assessment, automated patch and configuration management, and compliance analysis into one box.

"One of the reasons we've gotten together with Ingram Micro is that there are a number of resellers that have never worked with CA when it comes to security," says George Kafkarkou, senior vice president of worldwide channel operations at CA. "We're looking to boost our market share and also raise our visibility as a security company in the channel."

Kafkarkou says eTrust Vulnerability Manager r8 is designed to be a horizontal solution for SMB-focused solutions providers. Thus, members of Ingram Micro's VentureTech Network, the distributor's exclusive group of more than 300 SMB solution providers, will get special rebate offers and other incentives.

Along with Access Distribution and Ingram Micro, CA expanded its alliance with Arrow earlier this month. The enterprise distributor also began carrying CA's Unicenter product line for enterprise.