Computer Associates 2008 Annual Report Download - page 5

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ca annual report 2008 | page 3
At the center of our business is our large portfolio of contracts with customers. Our ability
to successfully renew these contracts, at good prices, is critical to our long-term success.
In the long term, we know our success depends on our software products’ ability to continue
to deliver value to our customers. To ensure this focus continues, we have organized our
development and sales organizations around the mainframe and our key growth initiatives,
which are areas of high customer demand where CA has leading technology: IT governance,
application performance management, data center automation, IT security management,
infrastructure management and service management.
Operational improvements in Fiscal 2008 included outsourcing some of our core back-office
functions, continued reduction in real estate for a total of almost one million square feet
and a substantial reduction in headcount. Although we think the bulk of these activities are
behind us, we are going to continue to aggressively look for ways to become more efficient.
To that end, we have a number of business process improvements under way that should
allow us to scale our business with little incremental cost.
Finally, investors follow CA’s cash flow from operations (CFFO) very closely, and I am
pleased by the year’s strong growth in this key metric, in addition to our solid earnings and
revenue performance. Clearly CFFO benefited from both margin and revenue improvements,
and we expect continued improvements in the years ahead as we continue to improve both
our top- and bottom-line performance.
Our Future
As I stated earlier, CA’s core business is helping organizations manage their complex IT
operations more efficiently and more effectively. Every indication I have is that the rate new
technology is being introduced into the enterprise will continue unabated, bringing with it
increasing complexity through the explosion of devices even further out at the edge of the
network. This, in turn, will increase the need for technology to help organizations govern,
manage and secure their IT infrastructures. This is especially true as organizations depend
more and more on IT to run important business processes at the same time as they contend
with increasing regulatory obligations.
letter from the ceo