7445_04-17_NEWS&ANALYSIS 15/9/08 18:04 Page 14
■ NEWS & ANALYSIS
Helping CIOs meet the
compliance and
connectivity challenge
With a US$700m R&D budget, CA chief technology officer Al Nugent is consumed
with ensuring the IT departments of the future respond better to the business world’s
needs. JOHN KENNEDY reports
IT’S amazing how many things in the
technology world come full circle.
Once, the mainframe was the heart of
a company’s IT engine, then the PC
client brought about a world of
benevolent chaos. Now, mainframes
and servers are again back at the
heart, threatened at the edges by
worker bees equipped with all man-
ner of paraphernalia – ranging from
netbooks to USB keys and iPods – to
make CIOs feel uneasy.
Calming their unease and restoring
equilibrium is CA chief technology
officer Al Nugent’s raison d’etre. His
enthusiasm, idealism and realism on
this matter are an inspiration to any-
one who talks to him. He allows him-
self a smile at the irony of how CIOs
wish to be seen in their respective
organisations. Following the tech
downturn earlier this decade and
scandals such as Enron, accountability
and compliance took centre stage,
while at the same time IT managers
and CIOs wanted a more advanta-
Al Nugent, CA
geous and responsible position at the
boardroom table. contain it? Containment – to borrow challenges for the business and be
Such ambitions, he reasons, are from our friends in Star Trek – is able to be proactive and respond.”
groundless, unless CIOs can prove futile.” The biggest worry for businesspeo-
they really can drive business value. Nugent says CA is building its busi- ple and their CIOs is information that
“In order to understand the next 10 ness around the idea that the com- is being blasted at us from every
years, I think it’s important to talk plexity is not going away, but will angle and to every single device – and
about the past five to 10 years; it’s all increase. “One has to embrace it in which could also be stolen via these
part of something that we see as con- order to be effective either in the avenues. “As business problems
tinuum. The notion of complexity and business world or technology side of become larger and larger, the amount
emergent complexity is the biggest the house. The truth of the matter is of technology that’s required to
problem that business and technology the business side of the house is what address those problems will increase.
people face today. It’s really impor- will really matter here. The technology It’s all the things at the fringe … the
tant to understand what’s driving people need to understand how the absolute explosion of mobile, and just
this complexity and is it possible to complexity will continue to drive in general, wireless devices,” he says,
14 Knowledge Ireland September 2008
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