John Swainson, chief executive officer of CA, Inc. (pictured) told attendees at CA World that at no time in recent history has technology been in a better  position to be a key driver of  business growth, success and, in some cases, survival.

"Organisations around the world are striving to cut costs and become more efficient and the current  economic uncertainty has intensified the pressure to do more with less," Swainson said. "At the same time,  companies seek a competitive edge to ensure that they not only survive the current economic downturn, but  emerge from it strong and thriving. Many companies look to IT to provide that competitive edge."

The key, Swainson offered, is the ability for companies to maximise the benefits of a vast array of  technologies already in their IT infrastructures, while dealing with numerous technology advances now  entering the environment, including virtualisation, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud computing and  Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

"Every one of these improvements presents a new challenge for governance, management and security, which  continue to be requisite elements for guaranteeing services levels and ensuring that IT investments are  optimised," Swainson said. CA, with its leading IT management, governance and security solutions, is  dedicated to helping customers "not only survive, but thrive in today's marketplace." he said. "We can help  companies stay competitive and emerge stronger and well positioned to take advantage of the inevitable  recovery in global markets."

More than 5,000 IT professionals from around the globe are attending CA World to get insights into what is  happening in the IT management space and how to best leverage CA software to maximise their organisation's  IT capabilities. The user conference, starting today and ending Nov. 20, also will showcase a number of new  CA solution offerings supporting CA's Enterprise IT Management vision in the areas of Security Management,  Service Management, Infrastructure Management, SaaS, Governance, Emerging Technologies and Mainframe  Management.

In his address, which included a "Virtual John" in a "Second Life" segment, Swainson pointed to the many IT  advances that are providing significant customer benefits, but also adding complexity and cost to an  already complicated IT environment. Such advances as virtualisation, SaaS, SOA, cloud computing and faster  and more ubiquitous networks, improve and enhance the IT environment, but also add layers that need to be  governed, managed and secured.

In specifically talking about virtualisation, Swainson said it "promises myriad benefits - from reduced  costs, improved service quality and increased agility, to a smaller carbon footprint and reduced business  risk - all acute concerns for business today. With a sound virtualisation strategy and effective  virtualisation management, an organisation should be able to transform IT management and provide dramatic  business benefits - a compelling attraction in today's challenging economic conditions.

"Management is the killer app for virtualisation," Swainson said. "Management is the technology that will  allow virtualisation to achieve its full potential - to deliver all the benefits being talked about."

Swainson pointed to recent releases of two virtualisation management solutions - CA Advanced Systems  Management and CA Data Centre Automation Manager - as evidence of CA's strong support of virtualisation  technology. CA Advanced Systems Management enables the management of several different virtualisation  technologies from many different vendors, while CA Data Center Automation Manager is a breakthrough  solution for comprehensively managing the provisioning of both physical and virtualised data centre  resources and systems.

"CA's approach to virtualisation is all about managing risk and ensuring service quality, so companies can  drive real value from virtualisation," he said. "Our technology discovers application dependencies and  relationships so IT professionals know which virtual and physical resources are supporting critical  business processes and can manage them accordingly."

Swainson pointed to CA's three-year-old EITM vision as the cornerstone of the Company's coordinated efforts  to enable organisations to drive business value from IT.  "We introduced EITM in November of 2005 and it  has always fundamentally been about transforming the way the world manages IT," Swainson said. "For the  past three years, we've been refining it and delivering on the vision with enhancements to our leading  solutions and new solutions that meet evolving IT needs. CA, through its EITM vision, can help IT  departments be more responsive to business requirements, improve service, lower IT costs, manage business  risk, ensure compliance and better align IT investments with business priorities."

Swainson pointed to a white paper by IDC that showed that eight companies surveyed reported an average 433  percent return on investment with EITM*. The white paper, sponsored by CA, found that the companies  experienced payback of their initial investment in less than one year.