More Tough Days For CA

In less than a week, Systems management vendor CA has lost not one but two of its C-level executives, leaving investors to speculate on what the coming financials will show and customers to wonder what impact, if any, this will have on them. The planned departures of CA's CTO Mark Barrenechea and its CFO Robert Davis come just weeks after Sanjay Kumar, the company's former CEO, pled guilty to charges related to an elaborate accounting scheme designed to artificially inflate the company's earnings numbers. Another executive, the company's former head of sales, entered his plea at the same time.Davis' planned exit comes weeks after CA, which has been on an ambitious campaign under CEO John Swanson to transform itself into a profitable and respected systems management powerhouse, admitted that the company would miss its own fourth quarter estimates due to an error in the way it calculated sales of products from acquired companies. Financial analysts said that while Davis' departure was likely to fuel investor worries about larger accounting problems because of the company's history, they don't believe it indicates that.

I, for one, hope that this is merely a bump in the road for CA. After years of rumors proven true by the facts, the company has made some major strides in reversing its fortunes in terms of technology development, partnerships, and marketing. Drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know what you think.