Good day to all in this, my first blog post. I’m Dan Lundwall, a principal Services consultant with CA. Since joining CA in March 2006, my emphasis has been on two products, CA Spectrum and CA SOI.
Because I’ve often read blog posts that lead me to ask, “Why should I listen to you?” I thought I’d tell you a bit about my background and experience.
In 1994, I had worked at a health provider services company in Salt Lake City, UT for 15 years, dealing with the more difficult datacom issues. As the senior data communications analyst, I was tasked with finding an enterprise management system to manage our network and WAN environments. I invited four major players to our company and gave them exactly one week to implement a proof of concept implementation of their respective network management solutions.
The only company that provided a viable solution was Cabletron Systems, with their product called Spectrum. I was absolutely amazed by what Spectrum could do. For the first time I saw in near real-time not only WHAT my network looked like, but also HOW it was performing. Most important for me, I saw root cause analysis at work.
With no hesitation, I purchased Spectrum. I liked the solution so much I joined Cabletron in 1996 as a Spectrum engineer. I’ve been enjoying the ride ever since!
In 2006, CA Technologies purchased Concord (which had acquired Aprisma, the software arm of Cabletron)—and I moved to CA along with Spectrum. In this job, I get to help organizations with their enterprise management requirements by bringing my 23 years of experience to bear.
Why did I take your valuable time to lay out my Spectrum experience? To demonstrate that I’ve been on both sides of the aisle, as it were: I was a customer for much longer than I’ve been a vendor.
Why is this important? Because it gives you a sense of how I work with customers. As a customer, I demanded a lot from my vendors. When a vendor promised something, you can bet I held him or her to it. If they were 1 minute late to a meeting, I canceled the meeting and found another vendor who came to meetings on time. It didn’t take long for vendors to understand that I held them to a much higher standard than most customers.
Customers have every right to demand the best from vendors. In fact, vendors should demand the best from themselves—otherwise, they won’t be vendors for very long. I know what it’s like to be a customer: That’s why I’m so passionate about delivering what I promise.
Just as my experience and customer-oriented perspective are the inspiration for my work with customers, they will also inspire my blog posts. And that’s why I think it will be worth your time to listen to me. I’m also very interested in listening to you, so I welcome your comments on this post and my upcoming blogs around CA Spectrum and CA SOI.