MORGES, Switzerland, February 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CA Technologies partners are expecting a bright year ahead, with 65% predicting an improved economy, according to the 2011 CA Technologies Channel Index. 54% of partners expect a boost in customers' IT spending, in contrast to the preceding year when budgets were predominantly flat.

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The CA Technologies Channel Index reveals that the largest hikes in IT expenditure will be found in cloud computing and virtualisation management. Spending on cloud is set to continue its upward trend of the last two years: 60% of partners expect a rise, compared to 48% last year. 70% expect increased investment in virtualisation management.

"The Index shows that many of our European partners are looking forward to an improved economy. With increased spending in cloud computing, our partners our capitalising on the huge opportunity it provides for growth. CA Technologies is helping its partners assist their customers with their journey to the cloud by acting as a single point of management for this environment," says David Griffiths, VP Partners, Alliances and MSPs in Europe, CA Technologies.

Over half of partners (53%) say that their customers are benefitting from the scalability, and 42% from the agility, that cloud provides. Keeping costs low is also a priority and partners say that customers using cloud are saving an average of 9.7% from their annual IT budgets.

Different industries are transitioning to the cloud economy at different speeds. IT/telecoms companies are perceived to be adopting cloud computing the fastest (66%), followed by the media/internet (57%). Partners identified the public sector (14%) as showing least inclination to move to cloud.

View the full press release: http://ow.ly/41flf

About CA Technologies

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is an IT management software and solutions company with expertise across all IT environments - from mainframe and distributed, to virtual and cloud. CA Technologies manages and secures IT environments and enables customers to deliver more flexible IT services. CA Technologies innovative products and services provide the insight and control essential for IT organizations to power business agility. The majority of the Global Fortune 500 relies on CA Technologies to manage evolving IT ecosystems. For additional information, visit CA Technologies at http://ca.com.

SOURCE CA Technologies