We attended the recently held CA World 2014 in Las Vegas which we estimate had about 5000 customers. Over and over we kept asking: What’s the intention of CA Technologies for this year’s event?

It’s not just that the event had Magic Johnson speaking about his past career and how he transformed from a world class athlete to a successful business man or the Tuesday night music event by Fray, a rock band from Denver, Colorado.  It was the entire atmosphere of the showcase, keynotes and presentation styles which gave us the feeling this is really a new CA – a CA that wants to shed the image of suits and complex solutions and replace it with T-shirts, jeans and cool, digital solutions. 

Envision a large solution floor scattered with CA Technology solutions and some of their partners; coffee, food and snack stations, surrounded by presentation theaters which featured topics like Business Intelligence, DevOps, Mobility, Security and Business Intelligence.  Very different, very vogue and very modern! Most important we saw a CA which stressed that “every company is a software company and innovation is key to create a powerful advantage” (quote from Amit Chatterjee, CA Technologies during keynote on Tuesday).  Sentences like “we are living in the application economy” and “mobile, the new interface for your mainframe” puzzled and excited both legacy installed base, prospects and other clients. 

As analysts we have to say “Well done CA Technologies”.  For attendees , next steps are how to transform into the digital business.  Keynote presenters from Twitter, Facebook, Nike and Samsung made it sound like a walk in the park – reality is proving us differently, but CA is driving innovation in today’s application economy.