CA Technologies Q1 Earnings: Nimsoft, Mobile, SaaS Deliver

When CA Technologies delivered Q1 2014 earnings results today, the big financial winners involved Nimsoft, SaaS and mobile device management (MDM). That’s good news for mid-market managed services providers (MSPs), many of which leverage Nimsoft and are now giving CA’s MDM suite a look.

CA Technologies’ Q1 revenues dipped 1 percent to $1.13 billion, but net income jumped 40 percent to $335 million thanks to tighter expense controls — and strong demand in such areas as Nimsoft monitoring solutions, CEO Mike Gregoire said in a prepared statement.

CA Technologies acquired Nimsoft in 2010 as part of an effort to push the company into the “emerging enterprise” market. While Nimsoft has performed well, Gregoire in May 2013 said CA Technologies needed to overhaul its sales, marketing and lead generation activities to compete in the Big Data, cloud and SaaS markets.

Back during that May 2013 earnings call, Gregoire encouraged Wall Street analysts, investors and customers to take a look at Nimsoft’s product portfolio — suggesting that it was one of the prized offerings within the company’s war chest.

Fast forward to the present, and CA Technologies is performing a bit better — apparently, thanks at least in part to Nimsoft’s continued momentum.

Still, the MSP software market is evolving rapidly and new competition could be coming. Kaseya, now owned by Insight Venture Partners, recently acquired Zyrion and Rover Apps. SolarWinds purchased N-able Technologies (earnings are due tomorrow). And LogMeIn has just announced a major channel partner program.

I’m not suggesting all of those companies compete head-on. But MSPs are now looking for suites of integrated products and cloud services, so today’s non-competitors could become tomorrow’s rivals as M&A continues.