Until December 1, the fronts were clear: Automic and CA were competitors in the area of workload automation and release automation. CA is the stronger brand with the broader portfolio, Automic offers more functionality, better integration possibilities and a unified user interface. Automic dominates the European and, above all, the German-speaking world, CA is more present in the rest of the world.

Now the world of automation has suddenly changed. Automic has been owned by EQT since 2009, and on December 1, 2016, the companies have agreed to sell Automic to CA for 600 million euros. The deal is scheduled to take place in March 2017.

A Small History of the Company

The history of Automic is long and the company has already undergone several major changes. In 1985 Franz Beranek founded the company as SBB software. In 2004, UC4 was made and the brand was quickly known as one of the market leaders in IT Job Scheduling.

In 2006 the equity company The Carlyle Group acquired the company. In the same year I started working with UC4 myself. The concept and the clear future vision of the company inspired me from the start. That is why I followed closely all developments.

A big step came in 2012, when UC4 was taken over by the equity group EQT. In 2013 UC4 became Automic, 2014 Todd DeLaughter took over the management of the company – and the success story continued.

The company grew further and improved the platform from version to version. In 2016, it was awarded the “Best Integration Portfolio” award in the EMA radar, the customer base is constantly growing, and the newly released V12 has been another important step in the future with new features such as Automic Analytics and the unified web interface.

Comparision of Workload Automations

CA’s automation solutions and Automic have been competitors for years and have always been compared in analyzes. For example in the Magic Quadrant of Gartner in August of this year or in the aforementioned analysis of EMA Radar.

While in most analyzes CA technologies is seen as the higher-selling brand, Automic’s products are generally considered stronger. The functionality is bigger, the architecture is clearer and Automic was able to make many of the weaknesses of CA technologies its own strengths, especially through the latest updates:

  • All Automic products (AWA, ARA, ASO) are integrated into the Automic Web Interface. The modern user interface is modular in design and is almost predestined to be extended by plugins with additional components.
    CA’s products are often criticized for the fact that the user experience is completely different in each of them.
  • Through continuous operations, there is no downtime during upgrades with Automic.
  • In the marketplace, Automic provides modules that are used by customers. This brings Automic a step closer to be not only a platform provider but also a content provider for automation. Automation modules can be easily downloaded. This makes getting started with Automic even easier.
  • Automic offers many interfaces. Meanwhile there is even an official rest API for ARA and an unofficial one for AWA (an official one coming soon).
  • Gradually, important add-ons have been integrated into the core platform, for example the V12 Automic Analytics. The focus has always been on building an architecture that allows long-term improvements and extensions. The Automic Analytics can be (and will be) quickly extended by many other objects and object types, and they provide the basis for the later introduction of a new predictive analytics functionality for run times and workloads.

What Will Be in the Future?

The many new features since the V8 have expanded the platform, removed entry difficulties for new customers, integrate to hybrid landscapes, and enable the orchestration of service-oriented environments.

Behind these extensions and innovations is a strategy – and that does not end with V12!

I hope CA recognized this vision with which Automic is further developing their products in a targeted direction, and continues in this direction. So that the innovators at Automic – and their customers – can see how this vision unfolds!

For many Automic employees, this acquisition is understandably difficult to swallow. After all, in the last few years it has been important to recognize and highlight the advantages of their own products compared to those of CA. And now you were suddenly bought by the long-standing competitor.

I would not be surprised if many of the experts at Automic feel an urge to get away. Especially the best employees have many options, can always decide where they want to work. Such IT rock stars, as described in this article, also exist at Automic.

It’s the employees who make the company so special. They have worked with a vision of the brand and the products for many years – and contributed with their passion to the extraordinary customer satisfaction of the company.

That is why I also believe that Automic does not have to worry about the future. CA has invested 600 million euros just because they see a lot of value and growth potential at Automic.

CA, for example in this article by President and CPO Ayman Sayed, said that it was not primarily about getting rid of a competitor, but more about combining the forces of the two companies and paving the way for the digital and automated future. Todd DeLaughter also writes in his mail to all clients and partners:

„CA Technologies and Automic share acommon vision for the future of business process automation[.]“

For Automic, it is now time to show the employees that the trip will continue on a great way – under the patronage of CA!