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Four years earlier, Computer Associates' new CEO Sanjay Kumar spoke of a new mission, a new business model, a new attitude ("focused, focused, focused" said the ads) and thus, a new "CA" logo. Things looked better for CA, but they went worse, and in 2004 Kumar and four colleagues were indicted for diddling the books.

But the business fundamentals, though soft, were firming up. An almost entirely new leadership team, led by IBM veteran John Swainson, set out to transform the company. There was every reason to say 'forget last year, focus on the future; once again, this is a new CA' from which it is a short leap to 'so let's change the logo again.'  But according to CMO Don Friedman, "changing the brandmark was the last thing we thought about. First, we had to transform our internal understanding of the business we're in. And it isn't about computers any more. It's about a huge new need, far more holistic, for enterprise-wide IT management." This significantly broadened the 2001 focus (on eBusiness software).

But to sell this idea, the new team concluded, it would indeed help to change the brandmark "and the 70s name as well."  Per Friedman, "'Computer' no longer says anything more than 'hardware'." It had to go, primarily because it narrowed and undermined the "EITM"  (Enterprise IT Management) positioning goal.  "We considered but quickly ruled out creating a new name," says Friedman; "but everybody calls us CA, which works fine. Even in California and Canada, context usually takes care of identifying us." A legal name change followed.

And the design strategy? Why change the logo? It's considered an evolutionary change, not revolutionary, and was  done partly for the sake of change (and that's appropriate). But it also signals changes in both strategy, and personality. Friedman says that by bringing the C and the A closer together "to symbolize unification and simplification, the new logo expresses our Enterprise strategy -- to unify and simplify IT management." The personality is simply more straightforward. It was hard to connect the 2001 'focus' story to the new 'unify/simplify' story. (Friedman adds that he never understood why the 'a' was the focus of the 2001 logo.)  Tony Spaeth

Sequel Studio, NY

Submitted by: Tony Spaeth, 13/02/2007
Status: Estimated by Tony Spaeth
Category: Software & Computer Services
Country (HQ): United States