For some companies, a re-branding exercise may be just the thing they need to push the business forward.
CA announced last week that it will drop its various sub-brands, such as eTrust, Unicenter and BrightStor, and product brand names, such as PestPatrol, Endevor and FileSurf.
Instead, the software company will simply use "CA" and a product descriptor. For example, Unicenter Service Desk will become CA Service Desk, and eTrust Access Control will become CA Access Control.
The software company said in a statement that the decision was "logical" as its research revealed the CA brand name to be stronger than the sub-brands. This across-the-board renaming will occur in phases to take advantage of the natural product release cycle.
Industry observers, whom ZDNet Asia interviewed, agreed that the decision is the right one.
Michael Warrilow, director of IT research company Hydrasight, said: "The CA portfolio was becoming far too cluttered, partially as a result of recent acquisitions like Wily, Niku, Concord and Netegrity. This has confused potential customers."
Warrilow added that the re-branding exercise is a much-needed step in the right direction for CA which has gone through "a period of considerable turmoil". The software company was embroiled in an accounting scandal, which later saw the ousting of its then-CEO and chairman Sanjay Kumar.
"I believe this re-branding exercise is an attempt to revitalize, reinvigorate and add some distance," said Warrilow.
Chris Perrine, chief operating officer of Springboard Research, also gave CA's decision the thumbs-up. "This re-branding will help the company better communicate the breadth of its product line to its customers, along with helping to better tightly control the messaging of the individual products," he said.
But is it a bad idea to drop "Unicenter", which was launched in 1993 and has become one of the most well-established brands of systems management software for distributed Unix computing?
The general consenses is no, although Springboard's Perrine acknowledged the product's strong brand equity.
"Regarding Unicenter, that is probably one slight weakness in the strategy as Unicenter does have product brand equity and it is well-known," he said. "Overall, I still think it is a good plan to rename, but CA will clearly have to focus a lot of its efforts on communicating the new name and brand for Unicenter."
But, if nothing else, re-branding exercises like this should make it easier for brand managers, said Andy Chun, associate professor of the Computer Science Department at the City University of Hong Kong.
Chun said: "There are certain costs associated with maintaining too many brands and may dilute the overall brand image. Putting everything under the CA umbrella should make brand management a lot easier and more cost effective. This will also allow the various sub-brands to leverage on the clout of the CA brand."
Melissa Grady, an analyst at Technology Business Research (TBR), said the name changes "shouldn't create many issues beyond the time it takes customers and partners to transition over to the new naming scheme".
"CA's name and reputation will still be attached to the products for customers to associate with the products, especially for former products like Unicenter," Grady added. "TBR believes that in the long term, the benefits of a consistently branded CA portfolio will outweigh the temporary inconvenience created by rebranding."
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