CA axes 31 staff at Australian security R&D lab

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 25 March 2009 13:07

Opinion and Analysis

Enterprise management software vendor CA has axed 31 staff at its Melbourne security R&D Lab in what it is calling a restructuring move. Melbourne is one of CA's largest centres for international R&D outside of the US and the move amounts to a downsizing of about 20%.

With revenues of more than US$3 billion and 15.000 employees worldwide, CA is a top 10 global software company. The Melbourne software centre downsizing, while not massive in scale, is a severe blow to the local development industry.

Australia is responsible for nearly 20% of CA's total worldwide research in the security field. The two Melbourne labs at one stage employed over 150 developers working on security software in the anti-virus, identity management, access management, and web services security fields.

A PR spokesperson for CA told iTwire in an email that before the latest job cuts there were 103 staff at the R&D lab. The cuts will leave the lab staffed by just 72 workers.

It is the identity management and access management area that has been targeted. According to CA, three successive acquisitions resulted in duplication of R&D skills in the field of identity and access management.

Over the past six months CA has acquired 3 US companies in the identity and access management fields - ID Focus, Eurikify and Orchestria. CA obviously believes these companies have superior technologies to that being developed in its Melbourne facility.

Even with CA's best efforts to put a positive spin on the axing, the outlook for its spurned development staff looks gloomy.

CA says that unless suitable redeployment options are found, affected employees will be offered a comprehensive outplacement service to help them find new jobs, and will leave with severance packages.