SOFTWARE giant Computer Associates has announced a wide-ranging global alliance with the British-based Fujitsu subsidiary ICL to jointly promote their open systems and groupware products.
The collaboration, in which the two firms will make joint presentations to larger corporate accounts for certain product mixes, is seen largely as an extension of a close relationship between ICL and ASK Ingres, the United States-based software company that Computer Associates bought last May.
It is understood Computer Associates had also been attracted by ICL's strength in Europe, where it hopes to bolster its position through the co-operative agreement.
A spokesman for Computer Associates, the world's second-largest software company, said the two firms had put together a product package for joint development and marketing that would closely integrate systems management products, groupware, and database management products.
Terry McManus, ICL's East Asia product marketing manager, said the companies had already met in Hong Kong to decide how the alliance would be implemented at the local level.
''There is a pretty good fit generally between CA's [Computer Associates] portfolio of products and our own,'' Mr McManus said.
