As you might expect, my recent item about a problem one reader was experiencing with Computer Associates led a number of readers to recount their own CA horror stories. What was unexpected, however, were a few reports suggesting that CA might be turning over a new leaf.
Many IT managers feel that products they used to love were ruined after being acquired in one of CA’s many acquisitions. "We used Arcserve and Inoculan from Cheyenne, a great company CA took over," wrote one reader. "Inoculan 7 is a bug fix for all the problems in 6.0. If you go to their support page and look at the 7.0 fixes, you will see some things that make you go, duh, no wonder we got infected with Netsky.C."
But a few readers said they think the company is changing. "Reading the gripe about CA made me want to give a different perspective on CA," wrote one reader. "While our company is a long time CA customer, CA was not a preferred vendor in the late 90's because they were too hard to do business with. For that reason, I was personally discouraged when CA bought Platinum, our help desk software vendor. It took CA two years to figure out a product roadmap and provide a sales rep who stuck around, but ultimately they ‘did right’ by us. In the last two years we've seen steady improvement in customer service, and a major improvement in technical support. We are involved in several cooperative activities that benefit both of us, including the Development Buddy program, and we've participated as a customer reference. Of course they're not perfect, but right now, for us, they're pretty good. This just isn't the same old CA."
While it may not prove anything, I can also provide an update on the situation of the Erwin customer I originally wrote about. Shortly after that Weblog item appeared, Computer Associates officials contacted me to offer their assistance to that reader. The reader chose to take them up on it, and he now reports they’ve made some real progress on some of his longstanding issues. "All of these lingering issues that I had open for months or years were addressed with courteous responses as to the status, or that a correction is being included in the forthcoming service pack which just went into QA," the reader told me. "For the major problem I was having, they helped me find a shaky but legitimate work-around, through a minefield of problems, and I am now finally able to get the job done."
Can the leopard actually change its spots? I guess we’ll see.
1:31:51 PM 
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