By Drew FitzGerald
CA Inc. (CA) Chief Executive Mike Gregoire wants his company's
name to ring out in Silicon Valley--a place he'll paradoxically see
less often as he settles into his role as the head of the New
York-based software provider.
Roughly three months after taking the helm at CA, Mr. Gregoire
said the company plans to consolidate its California office space
in Redwood City, Sunnyvale, Campbell and South San Francisco this
summer into a much bigger building complex in Santa Clara, at the
heart of Silicon Valley. Its work force in the area, now numbering
less than 400, will expand to more than 500 in the coming
months.
Mr. Gregoire, meanwhile, expects to spend most of his time in
New York--where he said it's easiest for customers to meet
executives--though raising the company's profile in California
remains a top priority.
"Every technology has a grounding effect" on talent, the
47-year-old executive said in a phone interview. "It would be hard
for us to ignore that the Valley has a lot of that. I think that's
kind of something that we missed out on over the past few
years."
Mr. Gregoire acknowledges he's faced "a huge adjustment"
adapting a management style honed during an eight-year stint atop
Dublin, Calif., human resources company Taleo to a much larger CA,
which is based in Islandia, N.Y. Mr. Gregoire left Taleo last year
after Oracle Corp. (ORCL) acquired the software provider for $1.9
billion.
"My experience on the West Coast is that people move faster," he
said. "We have got to pick up our cadence."
At the same time, Mr. Gregoire was quick to point out factors he
considers key advantages for CA, which began as a servicer of
mainframe computers and only in recent years began establishing a
presence selling software using the new Web-based model many
corporations favor. He said company has a "multi-year head start,"
for instance, on services that helps other developers test software
on different machines--a tall order in an age when employees use
hundreds of varieties of smartphones and computers.
CA plans to detail some of its new product offerings next week
at CA World, its annual meeting for customers in Las Vegas, with a
focus on software development tools and products for mobile
devices.
The effort comes during a challenging time for many business
software companies. Rival International Business Machines Corp.
(IBM) Thursday night reported weaker-than-expected core earnings on
a per-share basis for the first time since 2005, nearly a month
after Oracle Corp. (ORCL) delivered its own disappointing quarterly
results.
CA, which reports fiscal fourth quarter earnings next month, has
struggled with its own bout of weaker sales, prompting Mr. Gregoire
in January to promise a "detailed diagnostic of where we are."
Friday, Mr. Gregoire said the company in general must do a
better job turning good ideas into new products.
The new chief executive also said he plans to alter many of the
ways the New York company operates, from "old and clunky"
enterprise management software CA uses for its own back office, to
the simple act of a CEO checking his own email.
"The day of a CEO who sits in his office and has 10 or 15 people
taking care of him, those days are over," he said. "That doesn't
happen in the Valley."
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@dowjones.com
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