CA Technologies Buys Layer 7, Nolio for Mobile, DevOps Efforts

CA Technologies (NYSE:CA) today disclosed two acquisitions (Layer 7 Technologies and Nolio Software) to help drive the company's mobile device management (MDM), mobile applications management (MAM) and DevOps initiatives. The announcements, made at CA World 2013 by Executive VP Peter Griffiths, are part of a broader agile business services strategy.

CA Technologies is enhancing existing products and rolling out new products that support  MDM, MAM, mobile application acceleration, mobile transformation, and the mobilization of CA Technologies' enterprise solutions. The Layer 7 acquisition focuses on secure mobile application acceleration. The company says Layer 7 complements CA Technologies' existing identity and access management suite. Also, CA Technologies says it's partnering more deeply with SAP Afraria's business, which focuses on MDM.

During a press conference, a few media folks asked if CA was late to the MDM market. Also, the press asked if customers will merely buy SAP's MDM solution direct rather than purchasing CA's offerings. CA Technologies offered two key counter-points: The vast majority of mobile devices remain unmanaged — so there's plenty of upside opportunity for partners. Also, the total CA mobile solution pushes far beyond SAP's core MDM capabilities, CA Technologies indicated.

Meanwhile, CA Technologies discussed the Nolio acquisition this moring during a CA World keynote. Nolio's technologies speed DevOps and application deployments, particularly in the age of cloud computing. An official PR announcement is expected later today.

CA World has attracted roughly 5,000 customers and partners — including an impressive list of service providers (Logicalis, Rackspace, Savvis, Verizon, etc.). At the conference, CEO Mike Gregoire challenged ttendees to embrace disruptive technologies such as cloud, mobile, social and big data management analytics to transform business and drive competitive advantage.