Thread regarding CA Technologies (CA Inc.) layoffs

We need to stop the circular firing squad here.

So services take...you're both right. Sales promises the world regardless of what the actual functionality is supposed to be. But that doesn't matter much, because what engineering delivers never actually works anyway.

If engineering could actually write quality software that sales understsood enough to actually sell it....damn I'd love to work for that company.

Maybe sales should stop overpromising so much sh--t to customers. Developers don't get any commission but work their as--ses off because of all the bugs that come from ITC.

@VzPblP0-1fix I didn't imply anything about my own position you poindexter, but since you must know I do work in sales where I have to put up with the results produced by you incompetent developers. Customers are tired of hearing they need 100 prerequisites to be installed and 3 weeks of services consulting just to lay down a c-appy web GUI that looks like a high school dropout built it overnight. Not to mention the horde of bugs and glitches that you brush off as "design decisions."

And people wonder why CA is where it is.

Nerd response to @VzPblP0-1wrs.

You sound like a typical CA manager who got "tired of those nerds". Are you sure that you won't be a victim of Hockey Tan's house cleanup? You must be regarding yourself as a very valuable asset. Then it will be especially unpleasant surprise for you when you hear news about your own layoff. Be ready for yet another surprise: "CA manager" in your resume will be read as "mediocre manager". Try not to whine about cruel and unfair world out there.

"This functionality doesnt work"

'It is working as designed'

"The design is wrong"

'Enhancement request'

@VzPblP0-1trc Amen to that. The level of talent in R&D is miserable, I cannot wait until Hockey Tan cleans house and we get some actual developers who can put out a product that can be sold. I'm tired of those nerds whining about capacity and how "it's too complex" to code some mediocre functionality.

What are R&D people working on? COBOL, or some code no one is going to give a sh-- about in 6 months. Remember if you were a real developer you’d be working for Google or Microsoft. You s---, so you are a nurse at the modern software nursing home until your product dies.

Ditto that last reply. Been extremely busy in support, business as usual. Nothing has changed for us.

I'm in support. We're still working. At least those of us who are not in Islandia...

Is anyone non-R&D still actually working? It's the same know-it-alls blabbing and complaining on Yammer all fu---king week. Now they want to get in their political jabs because they can't help themselves. I hope they are the fu--king first to get let go!

Just do the math - how many CA people will be employed by Broadcom in one years time?

90 percent of sales, marketing, IT, legal, HR, finance will be gone. The innovation team will be gone. All centralized teams are facing significant cuts. Major offices including Islandia are due to shut. Engineering and support will have at least 25 percent cuts as unprofitable products will be shut down. This doesn’t count what steady state development will get outsourced. Tensor and Saas are dead.

Broadcom and analysts have discussed 1.1 billion dollars in cost savings. We certainly don’t have more than 2000 mainframe and Security BU engineers - just who exactly is going to be left?

We’re talking about a corporate raider realty to fire 7000 employees for profit.

When have they ever claimed this?

Yes the SEC filing mentions the severance and stock acceleration, but remember why it is there. It is not in that filing to notify employees, it is in the filing to notify shareholders of potential costs moving forward.

Broadcom will most likely honor it, but there are no legal guarantees as there is no contract in place between current employees and Broadcom.

It won’t prevent Broadcom fro selling you to Wipro without severance or stock, using badge reports to fire you, using performance management to fire you, or many other methods of douchebaggery to screw you out of money. We’re talking about a corporate raider realty to fire 7000 employees for profit.

With mainframe profits we get severance in any other scenario, yes stock and RSu’s can be taken away if the deal falls through.

If the deal goes forward, yes Broadcom will honor severance payouts. It is written into the sales agreement. If Broadcom does not honor the terms, the deal is off, or they are subject to penalties for breach of contract.

@VzPblP0-1gzc. But what if the deal does go through as scheduled, will it guarantee severance and stock? I don't know the law in this case. If law mandates payment of perks that's one thing. But if it all depends only on good will of the parties then you never know what to expect. Can you imagine BikeBoy taking care of anything other than his own pocket?

@VzPblP0-1mfw, I agree with everything you said, except for one point. The entire EMT has not abandonded ship. Most have which you are right including the one making the most money, but I know of at least 2 that are showing up every day and still doing their job. Strange that both are making the least amount of money on this, but I am not feeling sorry for them on that front as they are making more than me. If this deal doesn't happen for any reason, we will have NO severance and NO equity. Worst situation of all.

@VzPblP0-1mfw you must be a fellow Finance Guy. Your post is spot on.

@VzPblP0-1cda Further delaying the deal would be a mistake my friend.

A company whose acquisition has been announced and made it through shareholder approval is analogous to a tomato that's been plucked off the vine. As soon as that tomato is plucked, it is starting to rot although it takes time to become noticeable. It is the same thing here with CA. Everything may seem more or less intact at the moment but the company has been rotting since the EMT abandoned the rank and file.

Sales is no longer out prospecting and building pipeline. Renewals aren't being worked for new product placement. Sales Ops is no longer preparing forecasts... this stopped at the end of Q2. Open enrollment hasn't been scheduled. The company hasn't been backfilling staff lost to attrition much less opening reqs. Heck, most of the sales directors and VPs I know aren't even checking email more than once a day. HR staff has essentially been on vacation since August.

That's all compounded by the fact that the board signed a deal containing a clause requiring a $566 million payment to Broadcom should the transaction not close prior to January 7. The only exception to the clause is if it were blocked due to anti-trust. Counting on the US government to delay the deal 'only 60 days' in a CFIUS scenario would be playing with fire.

I for one find the whole transaction to be odious but it is far enough down the pike that further delaying it is essentially death sentence to those who will be left behind. The EMTs lack of management, leadership and communication since July 11 has broken the back of company. I mourn what has happened to CA in the Gregiore era but these are the cards we've been dealt.

Yes, better terrible end than terror without end.

no, dammit. no. I want this deal to close as quickly as possible. I am sick of waiting. Sick of the tension. And sick of not having my big fat severance check. LET CA DIE ALREADY!!! PLEASE!!

Acquisition needs to close, otherwise CA is really f**ed. That being said, a 60 delay for a CFIUS review, pushing the close date to Jan 1, would be preferred. Who's with me in calling CFIUS.

For general CFIUS inquiries and submissions of notices:

E-Mail: CFIUS@treasury.gov

Phone: (202) 622-1860

“Mainframe profits can continue to subsidize enterprise software for a few months and severance remains in play.”

Would be more than a few. Customers are going to bail if CA doesnt get sold and you know Compuware will be aggressive in taking the mainframe business.

CA is damaged goods but Broadcom is the worst case scenario (unless you are a shareholder or have significant RSU’s). No other company will cut as deep as Broadcom because no other company has such an extreme back office model. No one else would totally divest or shut down every enterprise software project.

If cancelled CA would need to do a 10-20 percent cut but that is less than half of the Day 1 layoffs Broadcom is planning. If cancelled Bikeboy and the E-Team gets fired and that is very satisfying. Mainframe profits can continue to subsidize enterprise software for a few months and severance remains in play.

If BMC had bought us at least we would have been part of a software company with real synergies, though cost cutting would have been harsh. I’ve seen some of the lists and cut percentages - the only scenario that would be worse is an immediate bankruptcy.

"If this sale doesn’t go through CA will have to do massive cuts just to tread water. If sold to PE they would do massive cuts. And Broadcom will be doing massive cuts. There is no “if PE buys us we are great”. That ship sailed when AVGO made the offer that was accepted. CA is damaged goods now."

100% correct

The PE comments are laughable. When a PE buys a company they use debt, which has to be serviced. That means they would need to cut expenses at least 10-20% immediately just to keep CA the same.

But CA can’t be the same. As soon as the sale was announced, no customer in their right mind would buy anything until it’s resolved. So revenue drops. The last earnings announcement was BAD. Gregoire didn’t hold an earnings call and the stock didn’t drop due to the sale.

If this sale doesn’t go through CA will have to do massive cuts just to tread water. If sold to PE they would do massive cuts. And Broadcom will be doing massive cuts. There is no “if PE buys us we are great”. That ship sailed when AVGO made the offer that was accepted. CA is damaged goods now.

Having said that, if the deal falls through a PE will be smart to buy CA - with the drop will be closer to $10-11B, and they can still gut the company like Gekko in Wall St did.

Funniest thing I have seen. Get back to work ca workers.

We got here because mainframe is 90% of CA's profit.

This seems to be a play from some insider, who knows share price may go up/down with this news and right time to make some profit out of it. It may be worse for CA if things don't worked out with Broadcom, but they should learn what H--k was trying to do. I don't mean firing people is the only option but working toward the growth will help CA for sure.

Right. There's no magic bullet here. We didn't get where we are today because CA is going great. We got here because there's opportunity to be had by cutting costs. CA as we know it is toast.

“If PE was to swoop in and take us private for 3 - 5 years, the turnaround could happen without the pressure of a stock price and everyone could come out the other side reaping the benefits”

The first thing a PE would do is shut down expensive and underperforming locations like Islandia. Cut 20-30% of the staff and shut down science projects. Ironically, a lot like what Tan is planning to do.

I laugh at all the people hoping Islandia is saved. Save yourself by moving off Long Island.

Very much agree with those who say if this is blocked it will be a much worse situation for us all (Assuming none on here are ELT). That being said, it could also be an opportunity for someone else to present a competing offer for CA.

While I know many posting on here don't like the direction CA has gone, it hasn't been a bad direction, it's just difficult to reinvent a public company. If PE was to swoop in and take us private for 3 - 5 years, the turnaround could happen without the pressure of a stock price and everyone could come out the other side reaping the benefits.

Nope. You think it's doom and gloom now? If this fails CA stock will plummet below 30. The result will be a bloodbath much bigger than what you think would happen under Broadcom.

@VzPblP0-1uyx Of course it won't be business as usual, but it also won't be all this doom and gloom. Layoffs will happen regardless, my bet is that another buyer or not will reevaluate the situation and keep locations from closing (Islandia in my case). They invested too much in this office, and the sense of community is too great to warrant shuttering it.

All they need to do is fire BikeBoy and the rest of his cronies and CA will be fine under new competent leadership.

Two isolated but interrelated or confusing events happened

1. News articles claiming Paul Rand has raised and requested cifus to revies the deal in the context of national security. He has no idea of the fraudulent letter (in the name of Pentagon) quoted by Broadcom in their statement. His ask for cifus review has no influence of the letter quoted by Broadcom. He confirmed it written the letter to Treasury.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-10/broadcom-ca-deal-needs-u-s-security-review-rand-paul-says

https://www.axios.com/rand-paul-sends-letter-to-steve-mnuchin-7ab98c6b-252e-48c5-a8da-cd72ac16312c.html

1. Broadcom denied the fraudulent letter (circulated in the name of DoD) but did not say anything about Rand Paul. The whole thing about this letter came in between is confusing and it is just misled the whole thing

I am hoping that the acquisition goes thru, otherwise it is going to be worse....

If this merger doesn't go through there will be massive layoffs at CA to deal with the aftermath. Then a different buyer will swoop in and the deal will even be worse for all who are left. Do you think if this merger gets blocked we all just go back to business as usual? No way.

@VzPblP0-hkw why now? Have you been following the tech news? China was likely caught sneaking hacking chips in to US bound motherboards. Just today another company apparently found one. So the timing is not unexpected. Do you know what havoc a foreign power could reek if they had access to corporate mainframes world wide? Just the amount of business CA does with the US Government should have given them pause. What Broadcom did was a joke. Moving their corporate headquarters did not change the ties they had to the PLA and Chinese intelligence.

Dreaming.

@VzPblP0-ewe I wouldn't be so sure. Even if the merger is blocked, Islandia is still a pretty safe place to be. Most people here are optimistic that Broadcom won't decide to shut the entire place down. Again, I'm hoping this acquisition gets killed to better those odds.