Computer Associates International Inc. will formally announce changes Tuesday that make five of its general managers responsible for profit and loss and product development, among other areas.

The idea was mentioned by CA President and CEO John Swainson in late January in a conference call with investment analysts and is being implemented now that the final quarter of the software vendor"s fiscal year is over, Swainson said in an interview Monday.

Swainson, who was at IBM for 26 years before his arrival at CA in November, followed a similar business unit structure at IBM.

"With a company the size of CA, you can"t manage it from the corner office," he said."You need to create empowered managers focused on well-defined markets and goals and give them power to go after those goals."

The five business unit managers will also be in charge of staffing, strategic planning and customer satisfaction. The business units are Enterprise Systems Management, headed by Alan Nugent; Security Management, headed by Toby Weiss; Storage Management, headed by Chris Broderick; Business Service Optimization, headed by Jacob Lamm; and the CA Products Group, headed by Mark Combs. The new Products Group will be composed of brands outside of CA"s core areas of systems and security management, including application tools and mainframe database tools, a spokesman said.

Swainson outlined other changes as well in an interview and in an open letter to CA stakeholders. One change calls for a greater emphasis on selling CA products indirectly through channel partners or integrators, especially to midsize companies, Swainson said.

About 10% of CA"s overall revenue comes from indirect sales, but the amount can be much higher, Swainson said. CA"s 2,500 sales executives will continue to focus on the 18,000 larger customers worldwide, but managers in each region will be responsible for all revenue locally, regardless of whether the revenue is from direct or indirect sales, he said.

Also, Swainson said sales to small and midsize businesses, and even consumers, will continue and are expected to grow. Still, CA plans to focus on services in support of CA products, although Swainson didn"t outline any details.