Computer Associates International Inc has beaten off the challenge of Tivoli System Inc and won a multi-million pound contract for its Unicenter TNG system management software with UK-based retailer, Marks & Spencer Ltd. Under the deal, M&S will adopt Unicenter across its global Microsoft NT-based networks. According to Berni Eglington, infrastructure architect at M&S, the software will enable the firm to lower costs and increase employees’ productivity. Although any cost reductions are impossible to quantify at this stage, we are confident they will materialize, he said. Both CA and fellow system management vendor and recent IBM Corp acquisition, Tivoli, were involved in the evaluation process, but ultimately it was CA’s strong partner relationships that proved to be the deciding factor. This project is more about establishing a business strategy than implementing technology. Although Tivoli’s TME 10 management software lacks the visual capabilities of CA’s Unicenter, it has a good track record and is a creditable product. However, while it claimed to have very good relationships with Microsoft, we found this difficult to believe, says Eglington. In addition to this, there were worries that Tivoli lacked CA’s critical mass. There appears to be a dichotomy of views within Tivoli. While it professes to operate autonomously of IBM, it also claims it could call on its resources. It must make up its mind whether it wants to be a big company or a smaller one, he says. However, the decision to opt for CA was not taken lightly. Previous experience with CA had done little to instill confidence, says Eglington. CA had gained a reputation for a ‘take the money and run’ attitude, but this is changing. CA is making a determined effort to be more responsive and has employed people specifically for this task, he says. There still remains fundamental architectural issues to resolve. Creating a single back-end log-on facility is proving problematic, as are security issues associated with the internet. M&S is considering putting its catalogue on the web, but Eglington doubts that current security infrastructure is adequate to cope with electronic transactions.
