As a CA Technologies executive from 1989 to 2007, Yogesh Gupta helped to build an enterprise IT management software giant. Now, Gupta is back — this time as CEO of Kaseya (recently acquired by Insight Venture Partners). His vision: Gupta sees a $1 billion opportunity ahead, developing cloud- and on-premises IT service management software for MSPs and midmarket businesses. Could he wind up haunting his old employers at CA Technologies? Hmmm…

Here’s the background: When Kaseya acquired Zyrion earlier today, Gupta told MSPmentor that he wasn’t interested in global 2000 customers — though the company will certainly grab a few. Rather, Kaseya will target a $10 billion market — developing cloud and on-premises management software for MSPs and midsize enterprises. Gupta thinks Kaseya has a shot to grab $1 billion of that opportunity.

That sounds somewhat familiar. When CA Technologies acquired Nimsoft in 2010, CA said Nimsoft would help to accelerate the company’s growth into emerging enterprises — a fancy term for midmarket customers in new sectors like cloud hosting. Fast forward to 2013, and Kaseya’s Zyrion buyout competes from time to time with CA Nimsoft‘s emerging enterprise business.

Call it the old circle of life — in the IT market. In some ways, Gupta is back where he started — building an IT management software company that seeks to improve application performance and availability. But in other ways the world has changed dramatically. Gone is the age of client-server systems. Say hello to managed physcial and virtual systems across private, hybrid and public clouds.

Long live innovation. Even if it means potentially disrupting your old employer…