Was your departure related at all to Sanjay Kumar's recent guilty plea, or to concerns that your resume might be tainted by the company's past legal woes? It's completely unrelated. I joined in 2003 after those issues surfaced. For 16,000 employees at CA, no, I don't think [they] are focused on the government trial and issues. So, those issues didn't affect my decision to join or to depart CA. My departure is predicated on the opportunity that I see in the market with Garnett & Helfrich.

Were you surprised Kumar pleaded guilty, as some were? I believe strongly in our system of jurisprudence and that every person will have his day in court. Every citizen should be afforded that.

What are the major coming technologies going to be, and where you might focus in your next job? Broadly, three areas. Clearly, software is where my operations experience has been. There are adjacent technologies around communications and media and the Internet. And there are still very attractive things happening on the hardware side. Specifically, in software, I still like the applications market, especially industry applications. The world is only 45 percent made up of packaged applications in terms of what CIOs buy. There are a lot of attractive industry applications for pharmaceuticals, education, health care and many others.

Are you helping find your successor? The next 30 days, I'll be helping through the transition, looking at both external and internal candidates. I'll participate and provide opinions to John Swainson as to a successor, and CA will name one promptly. CA has an incredible opportunity in front of her. I also feel, for myself, I'm reaching a stage in my career where I want to apply 84 quarters of operations experience, for creating a portfolio of stand-alone companies within the software segment that can provide great value. The venture buyout concept is very attractive to me, as well as partnering with Terry Garnett and David Helfrich.