Computer Associates International, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are trying to lure users to buy more of their management products by tempting them with freebies.
Like a candy store owner who baits children into a purchase with tempting handouts, recent announcements from CA and HP that they will bundle their respective management products with servers at low or no cost are attempting to hook users into a larger, more expensive purchase, analysts said. CA, HP, and IBM's Tivoli Systems, Inc. subsidiary are rivals in enterprise management.
"CA is actually giving away framework components for free that really don't do a lot unless you buy some other things on top of it," said Herb VanHook, program director at META Group, Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "The HP stuff is really not something that you get for free; if you do use it you have to license [it]."
CA two weeks ago announced the Unicenter TNG Framework program, an initiative to bundle a stripped-down version of its Unicenter TNG enterprise management system with server platforms from multiple vendors. CA enlisted some 14 companies to back its Unicenter TNG Framework strategy, including hardware heavyweights Digital Equipment Corp., Fujitsu ICL Computers, Ltd., NCR Corp., Sequent Computer Systems, Inc., Tandem Computers, Inc., Unisys Corp. and HP.
"CA's saying, 'If we were on every server like Microsoft [Corp.], all software vendors would have to work with us,' " said Sue Aldrich, a research analyst and senior consultant at the Patricia Seybold Group in Boston. "CA also figures that by giving TNG away, nobody will buy Tivoli [products]."
Tivoli is undaunted by this strategy. "This is clearly a response to the fact that Tivoli has had extraordinary success in the marketplace, and we view this as strictly reactionary from CA," said Tom Bishop, vice president of infrastructure development at Tivoli. "The solution that they're talking about, bundling, is really a LAN-based solution that doesn't have any real fundamental play in the enterprise space. If you say you are an enterprise player, it would be interesting if, in fact, the technology they were making available was enterprise-level technology."
HP's OpenView-Ready program, announced two days after CA's Unicenter TNG Framework initiative, intends to bundle subsets of OpenView IT/ Operations and Network Node Manager with high-volume systems and servers. To date, HP has recruited Dell Computer Corp.
"What they're giving away is a crippled version of OpenView that doesn't scale very well," said David Passmore, president of consultancy Decisys, Inc. in Herndon, Va. "If you wanted to scale to enterprise levels, you'd still want to buy a separate copy of OpenView."
That HP's computer operation is supporting the CA Unicenter TNG Framework program in addition to Open- View-Ready is causing some discomfort at HP. Dick Watts, HP's general manager of worldwide computer sales, even gave CA a glowing endorsement by saying it was the preferred vendor for end-to-end enterprise management (NW, July 21, page 1).
Watts later retracted that statement after taking some heat from HP's OpenView department. But one analyst said Watts' comments, combined with what he views as a network management-centric OpenView-Ready program, allows HP to make a dignified exit from the systems management market.
"This certainly provides them the opportunity to gracefully disengage from a full systems management strategy," said Rich Ptak, director of systems management research at D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. in Amherst, N.H.
HP has no intention of retreating from the systems management market, said Olivier Helleboid, general manager of HP's Network and Systems Management Division.
"The OpenView-Ready program actually reinforces our commitment to systems management," Helleboid said, referring to the lightweight version of IT/Operations that will be bundled with servers and to other recent announcements and acquisitions. "It's completely opposite of disengagement. It's even more of an engagement."
Similarly, OpenView users do not see HP exiting the systems management game anytime soon.
Theyre just trying to add value to their own systems, said Paul Edmunds, senior network analyst at Duke Power Co. in Charlotte, N.C.
OpenView has strong penetration. I dont believe the guys who are saying the death knell and the end of OpenView and all of that, Edmunds said.
Apply for your free subscription to Network World. Click here. Or get Network World delivered in PDF each week.
Request a reprint or permission to use this article.
