CBR spoke to Marco Comastri, president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa operations for CA Technologies, about the company’s CA Expo in London, disruptive trends and innovative opportunities around the world.
CA Technologies is a software company with more than thirty years in the market, so for the kind of industry we’re in, we are experienced. We are very proud to serve many large customers and the area of major interests are service assurance, monitoring, application performance, the area of security, the area of mainframe which is very important for the business that we do. We have solutions in portfolio management, with a flagship product called Clarity. Most recently we have opened up our business in the area of DevOps.
What is your role within the company?
I am responsible for Europe, the Middle East and Africa which is a very exciting territory. I’m European, Italian, and I love this part of the world. The complexity of this territory is huge. At a first glance you can say ‘the economy is stagnant’ which is somehow true, especially when you take southern Europe. But part of the territories that I am covering, the Eastern parts like Poland and the Czech Republic, the economy is growing very fast. Turkey is very exciting, with 45% of the country at below 25 years old, so you understand how things can be exploding in the future. Then there is the entirety of Africa, which is an unbelievable part of the world. There is a lot of complexity and a lot of problems there, but certainly a lot of opportunities too.
What do you hope to achieve from the CA Expo?
To bring the message to the audience. I think CA Technologies, although its an experienced company, it is not known as much as it should be.
What have CA Technologies been up to this year?
We have recently bought a new company called Nolio; this company is in the space of test and management of applications. It is a very innovative technology. Another area of strong innovation is our recent acquisition of Layer 7, a company that is helping different organisations to blend together applications with a single way of monitoring them. These are the most recent activities.
How do you build confidence in your clients?
We have a security division which is also serving the cloud space to improve the level of security, to manage the access and to identify who is accessing what and to create data protection. So we acknowledge this problem. We are also providing our experience in how to manage the cloud, we are strong vendors of public and private cloud software.
BYOD is very prominent in businesses today, how do you help your clients ensure that this is done securely?
We have a solution, which is another area that we are recently addressing, which is related to mobility management. BYOD is a phenomenon that is becoming more and more relevant. With the experience we have in the management of different devices and applications, I think the solution we are providing is a smart solution to bring efficiency to the next level.
CA Expo has a ‘disruptive trends’ theme today, can you tell me a bit more about that?
It’s the new normal, think about the complexity of a CIO’s job today, you need to have disruptive technologies to manage disruptive trends that are not created by you, but are part of our society. Disruptive technology for me means using smart things to manage smart trends.
One of the continents you work closely with is Africa. How is Africa doing in terms of innovation and progression with CA Technologies?
Africa is a big place, we should devote an entire interview to Africa as it’s so exciting. It is a world that is moving very very fast. I know Nigeria pretty well. It has 180 million people, it has a lot of problems but a lot of opportunities. They speak English there and have a good level of communication. They have started making telecommunications in the country as one of the assets of what they’re doing. If they will be managing the political side in the right way, I think this will represent an unbelievable opportunity for Africa, for innovation and for the people who live in this place. I read recently that the prediction is that by 2050, in Nigeria there will be 500 million people so this is unbelievable. It’s a great opportunity for us and for the rest of the world. These hugely populated countries are certainly very hungry to go to the next level.
What are CA Technologies plans for 2014?
2014 has already started for us! Working in the innovation industry, we are always looking forward.
