Published in The Australian, July 17 2003

WHEN Computer Associates announces its quarterly results next week, the Australian operation is not expected to be among the star performers.

CA CEO Sanjay Kumar singled out Australia for mention during a press conference at the company's CA World conference in Las Vegas earlier this week.

"Australia started strong, but ended weak," Mr Kumar said.

He said that the company expected its performance in the Asia-Pacific to improve in the next quarter.

"My feeling is it should get better," he said.

Mr Kumar declined to elaborate, citing the required quiet period before the company's fourth-quarter results are released on July 23.

CA Australia managing director John Ruthven said he was generally pleased with the company's performance in a tough market, though he would not discuss specifics of the upcoming quarter.

"We've seen an upswing in our year-on-year customer satisfaction survey results," Mr Ruthven said.

"A greater percentage of our revenue now is new business, and we've got a good uptake of people using our subscription licensing."

For its last full financial year, CA Australia recorded a profit of $4.1 million on revenues of $153.4 million.

The company broke with common practice in announcing those local figures, arguing that the market deserved to know all relevant information.

Mr Kumar has spearheaded a drive for greater transparency in the company's financials, including a move to expense stock options.

Similar plans are being considered at many IT companies.

Microsoft last week announced plans to issue staff with actual stock rather than options.

Angus Kidman travelled to CA World as a guest of Computer Associates