Computer Associates 2006 Annual Report Download - page 30

• Application Development systems — these solutions enable customers to build custom business applications
in a variety of environments using technology-neutral business process definitions, and to test and deploy
those applications across an evolving IT infrastructure.
• Enterprise Reporting and Information Management systems — these solutions enable customers to efficiently
and rapidly report on and process business information.
• Other solutions — these solutions include a wide variety of tools and utilities to optimize the IT environment.
Office of the CTO
The Office of the CTO drives technology strategy across all of the business units and leads research and
development for emerging technologies.
• Common Technologies — our Foundation Services and Management Database are technologies common
across CA products that enable our products to work together easily and also to work with other vendors’
management software products to deliver an IT environment that is simpler, more secure, less costly to
maintain, and more agile.
• Research — CA Labs drives research in advanced technologies related to management and security by
performing research internally and working with major universities and standard setting bodies. Current areas
of focus include securing and managing on-demand computing, grids, virtualized environments, and service-
oriented architectures.
• Emerging Technology Incubator — the Office of the CTO also runs incubator projects to create and bring to
market management and security solutions that enable customer adoption of new technologies. Current
incubation projects focus on management of wireless networks, smart phones, and radio frequency
identification technologies.
• Architecture — the Office of the CTO is chartered with ensuring that all CA products are implemented
according to a proven and consistent technical architecture. Consistent architecture accelerates our support for
key industry advances, such as the evolution of Service Oriented Architectures and Grid Computing and
Virtualization. Having unified technical architecture also promotes greater product quality and integration
while lowering development costs.
Technological Expertise
Certain aspects of our products and technology are proprietary. We rely on U.S. and foreign intellectual property
laws, including patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws to protect our proprietary rights. As of March 31,
2006, we have received approximately 600 patents worldwide and approximately 1,900 patent applications are
pending worldwide for our technology. However, the extent and duration of protection given to different types of
intellectual property rights vary under different countries’ legal systems. Generally, our U.S. and foreign patents
expire at various times over the next twenty years. While the durations of our patents vary, we believe that the
durations of our patents are adequate. The expiration of any of our patents will not have a material adverse effect on
our business. In some countries, full-scale intellectual property protection for our products and technology may be
unavailable, and/or the laws of other jurisdictions may not protect our proprietary technology rights to the same
extent as the laws of the United States. We also maintain contractual restrictions in our agreements with customers,
employees, and others to protect our intellectual property rights. In addition, we occasionally license software and
technology from third parties, including some competitors, and incorporate them into our own software products.
The source code for our products is protected both as trade secrets and as copyrighted works. Some of our customers
are beneficiaries of a source code escrow arrangement that enables the customer to obtain a contingent, future-
limited right to access our source code. If our source code is accessed, the likelihood of misappropriation or other
misuse of our intellectual property may increase.
We are not aware that our products or technologies infringe on the proprietary rights of third parties. Third parties,
however, may assert infringement claims against us with respect to our products, and any such assertion may require
us to enter into royalty arrangements or result in costly and time-consuming litigation. Although we have a number
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