Most of our customer discussions surround how we can lower costs for customers, enable them to be more efficient, and help them deliver more services at higher quality.  Customers recognize that it's not just technology, but people, processes, and technology that is the winning recipe for business success. 

What we are starting to see in many of our accounts is the evolution of this statement, notably how the codifying or encapsulation of run book processes are encoded into our technology management solutions.  For example, many customers using CA Spectrum Automation Manager are planning to reduce the costs of application release management, from testing and staging to production deployment.  Many of these customers are excited that CA is innovating with virtualization management in mind as more and more applications are becoming virtualized.  CA Spectrum Automation Manager, which manages physical and virtual infrastructures, integrates with VMware Stage Manager, enabling the automation of change, configuration, and release management processes.  By encapsulating these processes into the product's engine, customers can execute agreed upon processes automatically, triggering an action to remediate a problem that might cause business interruption.  This automation has customers excited that CA is delivering business outcomes for them. 

Many of our customers are using ITILv2 as their process standard methodology.  The most common processes standardized are problem, change, incident, and configuration management.  Release management is surging in adoption as customers realize the gains and business value of early ITIL successes.  What's interesting is the recent surge in interest in ITILv3 that essentially evolves the process discussion from the definition and building blocks, to the business impact and end-to-end service perspective.  We believe this is a by-product of the rise and deployment of virtualization. 

As automation and process integration start to show business outcomes, we are entering a perfect storm for IT to become the utopian profit center.  While this evolution will take many years, it's important to recognize that measuring the business and technology metrics will help establish the business case for future technology purchases that enable process and technology integrations.  With proper planning, IT will deliver well beyond cost reduction and containment, to driving and being the core delivery system for any company's business strategy.