On My Leaving EMA to Join CA

February 26, 2010
By Andi

For those who have asked, and others who may care to know – the rumours are indeed true. After many happy years leading the fantastic systems and storage management team at one of the very best IT industry analyst and consulting firms, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), I have moved on to take up an exciting new opportunity.

CA LogoAs of Wednesday this week (2/24), I am now at one of the very best IT management software vendors, CA Inc., where I am leading product marketing for their — our — virtualization management solutions.

In many ways, this was an incredibly difficult decision. EMA is a truly excellent place to work, and the role of an industry analyst was fascinating and fulfilling. The people I worked with and for are some of the best minds in IT – always intellectually stimulating, and straight-out fun to be with. It was truly my privilege to get to know them all, and especially to help my clients and my team to be successful.

“This was an incredibly difficult decision … yet also one of the easiest I have made.”

Yet this was also one of the easiest decisions I have made. I believe both virtualization and management deliver incredible IT and business benefits, and as virtualization becomes increasingly ubiquitous, management of virtual systems becomes increasingly critical. I have long considered CA a leader in physical and virtual systems management, and believe CA has a great opportunity to extend its leadership in virtualization management, by helping even more IT and business people to be even more successful. As a part of  CA now, I can not only be a part of that opportunity, but can be a significant author of that success.

Moreover, it allows me to indulge my passion for technology and my expertise in marketing in an in-depth, direct, and focused way, rather than the broad, ancillary, and essentially academic role of an industry analyst. I will be able to work directly with some the biggest and most successful companies and technologies, not just in the US, but around the globe. Plus, like EMA, CA also has some incredible minds who are some of the most fun people to hang out with too.

While some will see this a move (back) to ‘the dark side’, I have always considered analysts and vendors to be two sides of the same coin – helping IT to deliver business services in more effective and efficient ways. While some may say that I have ’sold out’ my integrity as an analyst, I have always considered my integrity to be a core and consistent value — and a non-negotiable one — regardless of my employer. While some may think I can no longer champion the best interests of enterprise IT like I did while I was an analyst, I believe the best software companies, and their best people, succeed and thrive specifically because they do exactly that.

“My goal is to keep posting interesting and informed ideas, regardless of my employer.”

As for this blog (and my Twitter feed), all my reasons for blogging and tweeting, and what I hope to achieve (both personally and professionally) with social media, are still the same as they were when I started. I therefore intend to continue writing and posting my personal opinions and insights about technology and other areas that interest me. After all, the areas I work with haven’t really changed, so I am still going to post about virtualization, systems management, data center operations, and cloud computing.

So although I cannot help but be informed by my current position and experience, my goal is to keep posting interesting and informed ideas, regardless of my employer. No doubt some people will stop reading — which is fine — but I still hope you will keep inspiring, contributing to, reading, commenting on, and arguing about these part-time musings of a full-time technologist.

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29 Responses to “ On My Leaving EMA to Join CA ”

  1. Chris Wolf on February 26, 2010 at 13:03

    Best of luck with CA, Andi. I know you will do very well at CA, and they are lucky to have you. We will miss you in the analyst community, as you were one of the most respected analysts in the virtualization space. I’m sure you’ll carry your deep product knowledge and great sense of humor to CA, and I look forward to working with you in that capacity.

    Reply
  2. Drue Reeves on February 26, 2010 at 13:09

    CA got a good one in Andi. Good luck! Hope to hear from you on a briefing soon! Keep in touch.

    Reply
  3. uberVU - social comments on February 26, 2010 at 13:18

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by AndiMann: My latest blog:: On My Leaving EMA to Join CA http://bit.ly/9Z9FGu...

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  4. Glenn Rossman on February 26, 2010 at 14:54

    All the best in the new job, Andi. You will be missed and leave BIG shoes to fill at EMA.

    Reply
  5. Andi on February 27, 2010 at 13:03

    @Chris – thanks mate, very kind of you to say. I am definitely hoping to work with you in my new role.

    @Drue – thanks, and you too!

    @Glenn – thanks mate, it was always a pleasure to work with you.

    Thanks to all for such kind words, here, on Twitter, and in email – from competitors (both new and old) and others alike. Makes me happy for what a close family IT can be sometimes.

    :)

    Reply
  6. Mark Sigler (@DataZen) on March 15, 2010 at 05:11

    Andi,

    Congratulations, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around the campus or water cooler or CA World show. I just rolled off a Cloud project for a bank in Australia, and start today with CA as a Product Manager for IT Process Automation Manager.

    - Mark (@DataZen)

    Reply

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