Charles Wang

Cofounder of Computer Associates International

• Born: August 19, 1944
• Birthplace: Shanghai, China
• Died: October 21, 2018
• Place of death: Oyster Bay, New York

Primary Company/Organization: CA Technologies

Introduction

Charles Wang, cofounder of the firm that evolved into CA Technologies, Inc., saw a need for third-party software for mainframe computers and helped to build the company that provided this into one of the largest global software providers. CA Technologies expanded its initial expertise and developed what became enterprise solution software, antivirus protection, and security products. As technology evolved, Wang helped CA Technologies expand its product lines from those intended for its initial corporate client base to offerings that were sold directly to consumers for use on their home computers.

Early Life

Charles B. Wang was born Wáng Jialián on August 19, 1944, in Shanghai, China. Wang's father, Kenneth, was an appellate judge in Nationalist China, and his mother, Mary, was a member of an old and distinguished family. The Wangs lived in the French Concession of Shanghai, that city's most affluent residential and shopping neighborhood. Fleeing Communist persecution, the Wangs moved to New York City's Queens borough when Wang was eight years old. Wang had two brothers, Anthony and Francis. The Wangs moved into a single-family house and experienced a cold reception because of racial differences between the family and their all-Caucasian neighbors. Wang was an indifferent student throughout elementary school but attended the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School, located in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn. Despite Brooklyn Tech's elite reputation, Wang was unhappy there and later expressed dissatisfaction with the teaching styles of most of the faculty, who seemed to value rote memorization above creative thinking skills. As a result of this difference with his teachers, Wang received poor grades. He was, however, accepted at Queens College, which he entered in 1961.

Wang worked hard while enrolled at Queens and enjoyed much more success as a student than he had previously. In 1966, Wang earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and sought employment in the area. Despite never having seen a computer, Wang was hired as a computer programmer at Columbia University, where he impressed his potential employers with his work ethic and strong communication skills. Over the next four years, Wang worked with a variety of computer programs at Columbia.

In 1969, while Wang was still employed at Columbia, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the globe's largest producer of mainframe computers, made a decision that would change Wang's life. IBM was facing regulatory pressure from the federal government for possible antitrust violations and as a result decided to separate, or “unbundle,” the sale of computer software and support services from the sale of its mainframe machines. This decision created a demand for third-party software, and Wang left Columbia to join Standard Data Corporation (SDC), a provider of data-processing services, where he worked as a salesman, ultimately rising to become that company's vice president of sales. In 1976, Wang and Russell Artzt founded Computer Associates International, Inc., in order to provide software to IBM mainframe users.

Life's Work

Computer Associates began as a very small business with only a handful of products and very few connections with mainframe users. However, Wang, who had proven to be a master salesman while at SDC, was soon able to change this. One of Computer Associates' most promising products was CA-Sort, a program licensed from a Swiss firm and available from Pansophic Systems in 1976. CA-Sort is a utility program that helped mainframe users sort, merge, and copy files. CA-Sort also provides data management tools that help mainframe computers manipulate data and operate more efficiently. Wang's aggressive sales technique included making cold calls to potential clients and offering demonstrations of his product's virtues. CA-Sort, which was used primarily on IBM mainframes running on the Disc Operating System/Virtual Storage Expanded (DOS/VSE), proved highly efficient and allowed Computer Associates to grow rapidly. By 1980, Computer Associates had merged with the Swiss firm that originated CA-Sort and was developing ancillary and complementary products such as CA-Dynam/D, CA-Dynam/FI, and CA-Dynam/T, which permitted the company to provide a consistent theme to customers.

After the success of Computer Associates' initial public offering (IPO) in 1981, Wang was able to expand his sales force rapidly and shift from telephone sales to a team that worked in the field. Wang preferred to hire sales representatives who had previous experience in sales, although few of his hires had previously sold software. This permitted Wang to focus sales representative training on the products Computer Associates offered rather than on sales techniques. During this period, Wang began his practice of purchasing existing software companies and merging their products into Computer Associates' already existing product lines. During his leadership of Computer Associates, the company purchased more than fifty other software firms. When Computer Associates purchased another company, Wang would lay off all of that group's sales representatives and management, preferring to promote only those who had risen up from within his firm. Through 1986, Wang concentrated primarily on providing systems utilities to mainframe users, and to that end he purchased a variety of companies that provided such products, including Capex Corporation, Johnson Systems, UCCEL Corporation, and Value Software. Beginning in 1985, Computer Associates began marketing CA Unicenter, an integrated set of its mainframe systems products. As a result of these mergers, Computer Associates had become the largest provider of mainframe infrastructure software and a leading vendor of security software.

Wang often expressed his belief in “old commerce,” a view that is uncommon in the technology field. This belief is one reason Computer Associates continued to pursue software contracts for mainframe users while much of the attention of the industry was elsewhere. Although unfashionable, this strategy helped Wang turn Computer Associates into a $25 billion company. Wang insisted on all Computer Associates employees embracing what he saw as the company's core mission: bringing value to customers. Wang demanded that, as much as possible, Computer Associates integrate all of its parts. Once it had become the market leader in mainframe systems products, Computer Associates continued to expand to new areas that could assist its customers. Acquisitions completed during the late 1980s included Unlimited Software, which offered office software such as a word processor and spreadsheets, and Software International, which provided application software such as financial packages and middleware. For the most part, these strategies worked. By the end of the decade, Computer Associates had become the second software company, topping $1 billion in annual sales.

Despite its many successes, by 1990 Computer Associates was heavily criticized by many Wall Street analysts. The company was seen as lacking focus, providing poor customer service, offering incongruent product lines, and failing to compete with office suite software offered by Microsoft and Lotus Development Corporation. In response, Wang increased the development of overseas markets, reformed the company's pricing system, and improved compatibility of Computer Associates products with that of other vendors. Wang also continued his pattern of acquisitions to build sales: Computer Associates purchased client-server vendor Legent Corporation, data storage giant Cheyenne Software, and job scheduler software from Platinum Technology International. By the end of the decade, Wang's moves had proven so successful that Computer Associates' stock price had improved from $1.70 in late 1990 to almost $70 by the end of 1999.

Wang did face some disappointments: A proposed $9 billion tender offer for the shares of Computer Sciences Corporation, a provider of information technology, was opposed by many in the media because of Wang's alleged ties to China, charges that derailed the purchase and deeply hurt him. In 2000, Wang was also named in a class-action lawsuit as having colluded to inflate the stock price of Computer Associates, with the company ultimately paying nearly $250 million to settle these claims. Wang, who had been granted a controversial $670 million in stock in 1999, tired of these charges and resigned as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2000 and as chairman of the board of directors in 2002. In 2018, the company was acquired by the semiconductor company Broadcom.

Wang died from lung cancer at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, on October 21, 2018, at the age of seventy-four.

Personal Life

Wang was married twice. In 1998, he appointed his second wife, Nancy Li, as Computer Associates' chief technology officer, a move that was criticized in some quarters. Wang and Li raised three children, two girls and a boy, including a daughter from Li's previous marriage. The couple worked with a variety of philanthropic causes, including the Make a Wish Foundation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Wang also helped to found an organization known as the Smile Train, which provides medical services, including surgery, to children born with cleft palates and lips. Sensitive to his status as a role model for many Asian Americans, Wang donated $50 million to the State University of New York at Stony Brook to build an Asian American cultural center. Wang also joined his brothers in honoring their father's judicial service by donating a new law school building to China's Soochow University.

In 2000, Wang purchased part of a National Hockey League (NHL) team, the New York Islanders; he became the majority owner in 2004. Wang helped to develop properties around the Nassau Coliseum, where the Islanders play their home games, and demonstrated a willingness to spend money on player salaries and development. Despite this, the Islanders lagged in attendance and Wang ultimately made an agreement for the sale of the team in 2014; he ended his long term as majority owner in 2016.

Bibliography

Hamm, Steve. “Charles Wang's Messy Second Act.” Businessweek, 12 Nov. 2009, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-11-12/charles-wangs-messy-second-act. Accessed 6 Aug. 2012. Describes Wang's activities in real estate development as of late 2009, noting that his history with CA haunted him.

Lohr, Steve. "Charles B. Wang, Software Entrepreneur and New York Islanders Owner, Dies at 74." The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/obituaries/charles-b-wang-dead.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2018.

Maney, K. The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas B. Watson Sr. and the Making of IBM. Wiley, 2004. Explores some of the challenges facing IBM as it sought to provide corporate clients with complete business solutions.

Pugh, E. W. Building IBM: Shaping an industry and its technology. MIT, 2009. Explores how decisions made in the 1980s have helped to shape and form IBM, with its emphasis on providing clients “complete” business solutions and a hesitation to embrace new markets that might harm existing profit centers.

Pugh, E. W., L. R. Johnson, and J. H. Palmer. IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems. MIT, 1991. Looks at IBM's great success with early mainframe computers and how technical decisions regarding innovations opened the door for competitors to develop a customer base from IBM clients.

Tennant, D. “Why So Many People Vilify Sanjay Kumar and Not Charles Wang, the Real Perpetrator of CA's Sins.” Computerworld, vol. 42, no. 4, 2008, pp. 4–5. A controversial article arguing that Kumar, former CEO of CA sentenced to twelve years as a result of CA's legal woes, did not deserve his fate and that instead founder Wang instilled a culture of fraud that permeated the company.

Wang, C. B. Techno Vision: The Executive's Survival Guide to Understanding and Managing Information Technology. McGraw-Hill, 1994. Wang provides advice for business leaders regarding how best to find solutions for their organizations.

Watson, T. J., and P. Petre. Father, Son, and Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond. Bantam, 1990. The former CEO of IBM discusses challenges IBM faced as a result of government uncertainty about how best to deal with its monopoly on the business it had created.