Computer Associates reveals Platinum plans

Computer Associates (CA) yesterday outlined its plans for Platinum Technology, the company it has now officially merged with in a $3.5bn deal.

At the top of the software giant's agenda is combining Platinum's business intelligence and datawarehousing tools with its own network management, visualisation and Neugent neural agent technology - the goal is to allow companies to do better ecommerce.

Speaking at a press conference in New York, former Platinum president and CEO Andrew "Flip" Filipowski called the sell-off a "bittersweet event". Platinum had itself been an acquisitive player, but Filipowski added the deal represented a "way for customers to have technology they can depend on".

The post-merger CA sees IBM and BMC as two main competitors, in addition to traditional CA foes such as Tivoli (part of IBM) and Hewlett-Packard's OpenView product.

Sanjay Kumar, CA president and chief operating officer, said some technology born out of the merger will be demonstrable at CA World, to be held at the start of July. He also stressed the merger wasn't a marriage of companies with the same market focus - Platinum only attributed about 20 per cent of its 1998 revenues of $968m to network management products.