Yogesh Gupta, CTO of CA

Computer Associates is not a name that you will find in many households, mainly because the software behemoth has concentrated on selling products to the largest of the global enterprises. We caught up with its EVP and Chief Technology Officer Yogesh Gupta after a keynote speech he gave at the WinMEC conference on the University of California, Los Angeles campus earlier this week. Gupta spoke to us about competing with Microsoft, the state of wireless networks and why CA is the biggest software company that you might not have ever heard of.

Gupta has been at CA since 1989, when the company acquired him through Cullinet. Since then, he has been steering the company's technologies, which have made CA an active player in many Internet areas. He was also involved in CA's early eBusiness strategies and today provides the corporate technology roadmap as well as manages the Linux and open source businesses.

One of the reasons why CA isn't a household brand is that its products are often sold through resellers and cable providers that co-brand or re-brand the software.

"We sell to consumers through partnerships and channels," said Gupta. "For example, RoadRunner Cable provides to its end users our anti-virus and desktop protection suite of tools. Yahoo sells a premium subscription services with our anti-spyware software."

Yet, over the years, CA has been in the top three or four software companies based on revenue. Most of its products have to do with managing mainframe software assets and large network installation, although they do sell anti-virus and other desktop tools.