April 7, 2008 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q by Chip Gliedman for IT Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

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1 April 7, 2008 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q by Chip Gliedman for IT Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Making Leaders Successful Every Day

2 Includes a Forrester Wave April 7, 2008 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Axios, BMC, CA, HP, IBM, And Infra Lead For Large Enterprises by Chip Gliedman with Simon Yates, Evelyn Hubbert, and Mary Ann Rogan EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In Forrester s 96-criteria evaluation of service desk management tools vendors, we found that BMC Software s Remedy IT Service Management, CA, HP, and IBM lead the pack for large enterprises because of the depth and breadth of their offerings that integrate the service desk into a complete IT service management framework. Infra and Axios Systems also were judged to be Leaders with robust, scalable offerings that could meet the majority of service management needs for the largest and most complex organizations. Not far behind, FrontRange Solutions ITSM, iet Solutions, Numara Software s FootPrints, Service-now.com, Touchpaper Software, and USU AG also provide service management tools that deliver deep functionality for the service desk. Symantec, with tight integration to the Altiris suite of desktop management tools, is especially suited to organizations with broader PC management requirements. Large enterprises are less likely to be happy with the other products in our evaluation BMC s Service Desk Express Suite, FrontRange s HEAT, and Numara Software s Track-It! However, midsized enterprises those with fewer users being supported, less complex requirements, or more limited needs will find a market with numerous choices and less clear differentiation. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 The Service Desk Is The Next-Generation Help Desk 4 Service Desk Management Tools Evaluation Overview 7 Service Desk Management Tools For Large Or Complex Organizations 11 Service Desk Management Tools For Smaller Firms With Less Complex Needs 16 Vendor And Product Profiles 18 Supplemental Material NOTES & RESOURCES Forrester conducted product evaluations in the fall of 2007 and interviewed 13 vendor and approximately 30 user companies. Related Research Documents The Service Desk Software Market July 25, 2007 Assess The Maturity Of Your IT Support Processes June 22, 2006 Thirty-One Best Practices For The Service Desk June 28, , Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Forrester clients may make one attributed copy or slide of each figure contained herein. Additional reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction rights and usage information, go to Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. To purchase reprints of this document, please resourcecenter@forrester.com.

3 2 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q THE SERVICE DESK IS THE NEXT-GENERATION HELP DESK The traditional help desk was somewhat limited in its scope and parochial in its focus. Operationally, this led to an organization that was: Reactive and technology-focused. Users would initiate the contact with the help desk, and technicians would reactively endeavor to fix the problem as quickly as possible. Help desk software would track these incidents for reports that were predominantly inwardly focused and efficiency-oriented. Isolated from holistic IT management processes. Some organizations might expand upon this basic model with incidents opened directly from systems management utilities. However, there was often little or no integration with IT operational processes and few ties to any formal change management process, even though many of the incidents were likely caused by a previous change. Unable to scale to meet enterprise needs. A lack of formal processes and procedures limited scalability. Because each interaction was managed on an ad hoc basis, opportunities for automation and optimization were limited. As either the number or rate of incidents increased, the organization would struggle to keep up. The Service Desk Is Now A Bigger Cog In The Service Management Wheel As processes and procedures for ensuring the continuing health of the IT infrastructure developed, more complex workflows and organizational handoffs were required. Enterprise-class tools to support this service management followed. Common structures and practices added process frameworks like IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and control objectives for information and related technology (COBIT) for further refinements. 1 Among larger and more complex organizations, there is widespread acceptance for a structure that follows the ITIL model for service management. 2 Vendors have followed with tools that assist in the implementation of ITIL processes. Tying the former help desk into this integrated service management model creates an environment where: Process automation and optimization are now possible. Once defined, a process can be instrumented and optimized. Eventually, automation can replace manual steps, increasing efficiency and effectiveness further. Cause and effect are easier to track. Tying incident, problem, and change management processes together leads to faster incident resolution, as many reported issues are likely tied to recent system changes. Likewise, multiple incidents point to underlying problems, which can be remediated in a structured fashion. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

4 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Business processes can be modeled and prioritized driving service desk behavior. Formalized configuration management, where IT resources are mapped to the business services supported, leads to business-oriented service-level agreements (SLAs), trickling down to the framework for incident prioritization and service desk behavior. Similar Products Proliferate And Differentiation Means Moving Beyond The Four R s Since Forrester s last service desk management tools evaluation in 2006, all of the major vendors have adapted and expanded their offerings through acquisition and product upgrades to better meet these holistic needs. Other vendors entered the market by expanding their asset management portfolios. Vendors have also increased their software-as-a-service (SaaS) options with one, Servicenow.com, making its service management solution available only in this distribution model. The service desk management tool market is quite mature, and vendors have had ample time to refine their offerings. The result is a set of solution choices with similar-looking tools, all of which are more than adequate to deliver the Four R s of basic incident management record, route, resolve, and report. However, once you move past this basic functionality, there are sufficient differences in the way that the service desk tools vendors approach service management. This means that a basic segmentation does exist between tiers of tools. Deciding upon the most appropriate product for your organization will often come down to a number of key factors that include: The size and distribution of your service desk organization. Large, geographically distributed organizations place greater demands on the service desk management solution than do smaller, localized service desks. The smaller segment may have between 10 and 200 service desk and IT technicians with access to the tools, and the larger segment will have from 60 to more than 1,000 total technicians and other users and approvers of various aspects of the tool suite. The number and variety of the assets and users under management. An organization with vast numbers of varied technology assets linked into large, business-critical services will place greater demands on service management tools. IT leadership will need to map and visualize these relationships and their business impact. They will expect tools that handle problem, change, and configuration management within this environment to be robust and highly configurable. Smaller organizations may be looking for one-stop asset, service, and systems management solutions for a highly PC-centric environment. The maturity of your organizational processes. As you overlay more formalized processes that culminate in a well-defined IT service catalog, a full-function configuration management database (CMDB) becomes a requirement. 3 The most advanced organizations are now moving to define logical IT services and manage all aspects of service support and service delivery 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

5 4 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q through their service management tools. Organizations with less well-integrated processes will still benefit from mature, functionally rich modules for incident, problem, change, and configuration management but won t necessarily stress the system with the requirement for complex application mapping and service-level management. The complexity of the required workflows. The process of managing change to the infrastructure is compounded by size, complexity, business impact, and new regulatory requirements. Modeling such workflows with the proper approval and change controls requires industrial-strength process and workflow management tools that allow secure, auditable, and controlled processes. The volume of incidents and resulting records. The greater the number of users and assets, the larger the databases will grow. Generally speaking, the volume of tickets is directly related to the number of employees in the organization. The smallest tier would include up to approximately 2,500 users. The midtier would include from 2,500 to 8,000 users and the largest tier would include more than 8,000. To support any of the tiers, the tools must support appropriate platforms, databases, and the third-party asset and systems management tools. A smaller, highly diversified organization may stress a service desk infrastructure more than an organization that is twice the size but less mature in its processes and more homogeneous in its environment. As a result, we evaluated tools against sets of criteria and varied the importance of various features and characteristics to produce two evaluations one geared toward the larger enterprise and one for small to midsized enterprises. The large enterprise evaluation includes the large-tier described and those in the midtier with higher complexity requirements. The smaller evaluation includes the smallest tier and those in the midtier with less complex requirements. SERVICE DESK MANAGEMENT TOOLS EVALUATION OVERVIEW To assess the state of the service desk management tools market and see how the vendors stack up against one another, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top service desk management tools vendors. Evaluation Focused On Product Capabilities, ITSM Road Map, And Market Traction After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 96 criteria, which we grouped into three high-level buckets: Current offering. We evaluated a broad set of service desk management solutions, measuring their ability to deliver robust and market-appropriate functionality. As a framework for the evaluation, we looked at the ITIL processes of incident, problem, change, and configuration management separately. We evaluated the architecture of the products, taking into consideration April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

6 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q platform support; CMDB and service management capabilities, tools, or integration options for systems and asset management; and tools for customization and administration. We also evaluated the ability for the solutions to define, administer, and report on service-level agreements and service desk performance. Strategy. We reviewed each vendor s strategy, target markets, and its approach to meeting the full breadth of enterprise IT service management (ITSM) needs, including sales and implementation strategies, geographic presence, partnerships, and costs well into the future. Market presence. We assessed each vendor s financials, installed base, and staff size and structure to gauge their traction in the service desk market. Forrester Evaluated 16 Products From 13 Vendors We included 16 products from 13 vendors in the assessment: Axios Systems, BMC Software, CA, FrontRange Solutions, HP, IBM, iet Solutions, Infra, Numara Software, Service-now.com, Symantec, Touchpaper Software, and USU AG (see Figure 1). Each of these vendors products is: On the minds of Forrester clients. All of the vendors and products included in the assessment were the subject of client inquiries, product assessments, or consulting engagements. Our clients told us what we needed to evaluate. Actively marketing and selling service desk products. All of the included products are actively being marketed to service desk customers as independent solutions. We also hear reports of other products being used to manage the internal service desk of Forrester clients. Many of these tools are from companies whose offerings for enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) have been put to use internally but were not originally designed for the service desk and are not included in this evaluation. Available in the market. All of the products included in the evaluation were in general availability as of November 1, Beta and other limited availability releases were not included in our current offering evaluations, although they did contribute to our evaluation of company strategy and direction. 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

7 6 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 1 Evaluated Vendors: Product Information And Selection Criteria Vendor Product evaluated Product version evaluated Version release date Axios Systems assyst 7.5 May 2007 BMC Software Remedy IT Service Management 7 July 2006 BMC Software Service Desk Express Suite 9.2 July 2007 CA Unicenter Service Desk 11.2 June 2006 FrontRange Solutions HEAT April 2007 FrontRange Solutions ITSM April 2007 HP Service Manager 7.0 November 2007 IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager August 2007 iet Solutions iet ITSM 4.1 September 2007 Infra infraenterprise August 2006 Numara Software Numara FootPrints 8 September 2007 Numara Software Numara Track-It! 8 April 2007 Service-now.com Service-now.com Fall 2007 release November 2007 Symantec Altiris Helpdesk Solution 6.0 sp5 October 2007 Touchpaper Software IT Business Management (ITBM) August 2007 USU AG Valuemation 3.1, Customer Service Pack 02 July 2007 Vendor selection criteria The vendor actively markets a dedicated service desk management tool. The vendor targets enterprise-class organizations with complex business requirements. The solution was generally available at the time of data collection for this evaluation with at least two references available for contact. The solution was the subject of client inquiries, product assessments, or other product selection engagements during Source: Forrester Research, Inc. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

8 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q SERVICE DESK MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR LARGE OR COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONS Larger organizations typically have more than 60 people who touch the service desk tool suite in some capacity. Technicians will log, dispatch, and resolve incidents. Specialist inside and outside of the service desk get to the bottom of problems and recommend the changes required to fix them. Users in IT and the business need to approve and schedule the change with the lowest possible impact to business-critical processes. Changes to the configuration across thousands of IT assets need to be recorded and potentially audited. As a result, service desk management tools appropriate for large organizations are characterized by their ability to: Handle large call volume. Organizations with 5,000 to 10,000 or more employees can generate upwards of 100,000 individual tickets per year with multiple database records for each ticket. Can the product handle these volumes? Model large and complex workflows. Large organizations usually have well-defined processes and governance structures. Can the tool model complex organizations into logical, businesscentric services? Can the tool model workflows, handle diverse change management approval processes, and be used to implement an automated service request management process? Can the tool support the operations of a global enterprise with critical business systems? Integrate with common systems and asset management tools. Managing the IT infrastructure is more than just handling calls from end users. Do the tools integrate with the infrastructure management tools and vendors currently in place? Support the installation and support needs of large, global enterprises. Installing and customizing a full service management suite in a large organization can take six to 12 months. Does the vendor have the experience, size, and partnerships required to make these customers successful in the appropriate geographies? The evaluation uncovered a market served by (see Figure 2): Industrial-strength enterprise solutions. Solutions from vendors like Axios, BMC (Remedy), CA, HP, IBM, and Infra are industrial-strength tool suites with proven track records in many global organizations of 10,000-plus employees. All have comprehensive suites of tools covering a full range of service management requirements tied to robust workflow engines and overlaying top-tier CMDB architectures. Additionally, out-of-the-box configuration options can also make them appropriate for much smaller organizations that require robust tools to manage their needs. Robust midtier options. Vendors like FrontRange (ITSM), iet, Numara Software (FootPrints), Service-now.com, Symantec, Touchpaper, and USU AG are competitive options for organizations with between 2,500 and 8,000 employees or those with less demanding workflow 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

9 8 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q or scalability requirements. These products can be implemented more easily than their larger competitors and, depending upon requirements, may be the best choice for some of the largest organizations. All of these vendors have reference customers among the largest of corporations. Smaller solutions for special needs. Both BMC and FrontRange have additional solutions (FrontRange HEAT and BMC Service Desk Express) that are appropriate only for the lower end of the large enterprise segment. However, given the large number of more capable products better able to meet the needs of this market, a choice for either should require very specific needs that would only be met by either of these products. Poor fits for large or complex organizations. Numara Track-It! was not designed for this market and should be avoided as a service desk management tool for larger enterprises. While the product has many useful capabilities, larger enterprises will be disappointed if they attempt to implement Numara Track-It! as a full service desk management tool. Figure 2 Forrester Wave : Large Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 Strong Current offering Risky Strong Bets Contenders Performers Leaders FrontRange ITSM Infra Service-now.com Numara FootPrints USU AG BMC Service Desk Express Suite FrontRange HEAT BMC Remedy ITSM Numara Track-It! CA IBM Axios Systems iet Solutions Touchpaper Software Symantec HP Go online to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings. Market presence Weak Weak Strategy Strong Source: Forrester Research, Inc. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

10 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 2 Forrester Wave : Large Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting Axios Systems BMC Remedy ITSM BMC Service Desk Express Suite CA FrontRange HEAT FrontRange ITSM HP IBM CURRENT OFFERING Incident management Problem management Change management Configuration management Service request management Knowledge management tools Architecture Reporting 60% 15% 15% 20% STRATEGY Product vision Sales and implementation strategy Technology and OEM partnerships Geographic presence Cost 50% 20% MARKET PRESENCE Financials Installed base Employee base 0% 20% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

11 10 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 2 Forrester Wave : Large Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting iet Solutions Infra Numara FootPrints Numara Track-It! Service-now.com Symantec Touchpaper Software USU AG CURRENT OFFERING Incident management Problem management Change management Configuration management Service request management Knowledge management tools Architecture Reporting 60% 15% 15% 20% STRATEGY Product vision Sales and implementation strategy Technology and OEM partnerships Geographic presence Cost 50% 20% MARKET PRESENCE Financials Installed base Employee base 0% 20% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. In this evaluation, the global presence of the vendors was emphasized in our weightings. Organizations with specific geographic requirements will need to answer the same questions based upon their locations and change the weightings appropriately. This evaluation of the large enterprise service desk tool market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view the detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weighting to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

12 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q SERVICE DESK MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR SMALLER FIRMS WITH LESS COMPLEX NEEDS Organizations with between 10 and 200 people using the service desk tool suite in some capacity have many of the same needs as their larger counterparts. Incidents occur, and problems need to be solved. Changes need to be approved, scheduled, and implemented, and the infrastructure components cataloged and managed. However, these organizations are more likely to look at tool suites that can be installed with fewer expert resources and lower customization requirements, provide a best practices framework to catalyze the maturing of the service desk organization, and integrate or provide the tools that manage a more PC-centric infrastructure. As a result, service desk management tools appropriate for smaller organizations are characterized by: Lower platform demands. In a smaller enterprise or one with fewer global requirements, it is likely that a single instance of the service desk management application will be capable of supporting the organization s ITSM needs. Does the product support the server and database options most likely found within a smaller enterprise? Greater emphasis on incident and problem management. The service desk at a smaller organization is more likely to be chartered with improving incident and problem management than larger, ITSM-oriented firms. Does the suite have the tools and capabilities to assist both the service desk technician and the end user in solving issues quickly and correctly? Lower requirements for training and expert resources. Smaller companies need to be able to define and manage their own workflows, adapt the user interface as needed, and manage and administer the applications and users without the need for expensive or highly trained resources. Can the system support the process needs of this class of organization and do so in an easy-to-administer paradigm? Desktop life-cycle capabilities. Organizations in this tier are more likely to want one-stop shopping for their desktop inventory, asset management, and life-cycle management needs. Does the suite include or tightly link to PC discovery, inventory, asset management, remote control, and software installation tools? The evaluation uncovered a market in which there is very little to distinguish basic product functionality. The clustering of products demonstrates that this is clearly a buyer s market one in which numerous vendors will be vying for business with products that are not greatly differentiated (see Figure 3). Within the vendor offerings: Large enterprise vendors rise to the top. By their sheer breadth of available functionality and capabilities, BMC, CA, HP, and IBM score at the top of the pack. However, a decision to implement one of these products within a smaller organization may lead to higher 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

13 12 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q implementation and management costs for an implementation that will only take advantage of a fraction of the product s capabilities. One thing that may change this equation, however, is the availability of these products in a SaaS model. Such an offering could reduce the barriers for a smaller organization and should be monitored by those who might benefit from the broad capabilities that this tier of product will offer. A large, highly capable group follows. The bulk of the evaluated products are all likely candidates to meet the service management needs of the average enterprise. Geographic presence, architecture, specific capabilities, and integration will allow one or more to bubble to the top of any individual company s evaluation. However, it is tough to go wrong with any of the products for a robust service desk management tool that can be expanded to provide basic service management functionality across the other key functional areas. Numara Track-It! fills a special niche. Numara Track-It! is more suited to the needs of smaller businesses and therefore did not fare well in our more process-centric evaluation criteria. However, Track-It! is a self-contained environment with integrated PC discovery, inventory, software license management, and help desk functions that may be perfectly suited for an organization with fewer than 1,000 employees that is looking to add structure and tracking to what is probably an ad hoc process today. With an installed base of more than 50,000 companies, Numara Track-It! clearly fills a niche that the other vendors do not. This evaluation of the smaller enterprise service desk management tools market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weighting to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

14 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 3 Forrester Wave : Small Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 Strong Risky Strong Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Current offering CA BMC Remedy ITSM HP Infra IBM Axios Systems FrontRange ITSM Service-now.com Numara USU AG FootPrints BMC Service Desk Express Suite Symantec Touchpaper iet Solutions Software Numara Track-It! FrontRange HEAT Go online to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings. Market presence Weak Weak Strategy Strong Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

15 14 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 3 Forrester Wave : Small Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting Axios Systems BMC Remedy ITSM BMC Service Desk Express Suite CA FrontRange HEAT FrontRange ITSM HP IBM CURRENT OFFERING Incident management Problem management Change management Configuration management Service request management Knowledge management tools Architecture Reporting 60% 5% 5% STRATEGY Product vision Sales and implementation strategy Technology and OEM partnerships Geographic presence Cost 60% MARKET PRESENCE Financials Installed base Employee base 0% 20% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

16 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Figure 3 Forrester Wave : Small Enterprise Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 08 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting iet Solutions Infra Numara FootPrints Numara Track-It! Service-now.com Symantec Touchpaper Software USU AG CURRENT OFFERING Incident management Problem management Change management Configuration management Service request management Knowledge management tools Architecture Reporting 60% 5% 5% STRATEGY Product vision Sales and implementation strategy Technology and OEM partnerships Geographic presence Cost 60% MARKET PRESENCE Financials Installed base Employee base 0% 20% All scores are based on a scale o 0 wea to 5 strong. Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

17 16 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q VENDOR AND PRODUCT PROFILES Although any of these vendors products provide robust service management functionality, you need to closely examine your own needs to get the best vendor match. You should adjust the Forrester Wave spreadsheet weightings to reflect your own priorities, using the vendor profiles as general guidance. Axios Systems. UK-based Axios Systems was one of the first vendors to embrace the ITIL framework for service management. With service management as its sole focus and with the ITIL framework as its architectural model, the company has created a robust tool set that can be implemented out of the box for many organizations in the 5,000 to 25,000 employee range. Axios assyst is especially strong for organizations that are looking to implement a standardized set of processes and are willing to trade complex customization capabilities for ease of implementation and management. Most of the customization requirements can be met through configuration changes in the application itself, lowering the cost of implementation and ownership. BMC Software. With the combination of BMC Remedy IT Service Management and BMC Service Desk Express Suite, BMC has assembled a suite of tools that can fit an organization of virtually any size. At the upper end, the market-leading Remedy product line has been integrated into the company s Atrium suite, with the underlying CMDB shared among all components of the Atrium line developed in Remedy s Action Request (AR) language. Remedy has been used to model thousands of different workflow processes and recent improvements to the tool make implementations without huge customization and development efforts possible. BMC Service Desk Express Suite, the former Magic Help Desk product line, is suitable for organizations with 5,000 or fewer employees. Supporting this market required the development of a reseller network to complement the direct sales focus of the parent organization. This channel is growing, helping expand BMC s global presence. CA. CA s Unicenter Service Desk suite is a natural fit for organizations with a commitment to CA s enterprise management tools and a capable contender for a standalone large enterprise service management solution. CA has tied the service desk offerings with its other IT enterprise management offerings, such as CMDB, asset, identity, and portfolio management to create an offering that is both broad and deep. CA has also extended its product to include robust service request management and service catalog capabilities. FrontRange Solutions. FrontRange took the strong market presence gained with its HEAT product and is expanding upmarket with its modular ITSM offering. First released in early 2005, the product has matured into a capable offering for midsized enterprises desiring a complete ITIL-oriented tool. At the same time, FrontRange has continued enhancing and marketing its HEAT product. HEAT, with its large installed base, is still targeted at the lower end of the market and is appropriate for smaller organizations looking for a solution that s easy to deploy and maintain. These customers can now expand HEAT functionality in required areas with the addition of ITSM product modules. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

18 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q HP. HP has amassed a formidable group of service management solutions for the upper end of the market. With the acquisitions of Peregrine Systems and Mercury Interactive, the company acquired the building blocks for an industry-leading suite of tools. The company has unified its service management offerings into the recently released Service Manager product line. Built on top of the enterprise-class Peregrine Service Center product, Service Manager also incorporates the standardized processes and ease of implementation found in the HP OpenView Service Desk. With a product line that extends to complementary and integrated asset management, service request and service catalog management, IT governance, identity management, and automated provisioning, HP should be on the short list for large enterprises in search of full ITSM capabilities. IBM. IBM entered the service desk management market with the 2006 acquisition of MRO software. MRO had developed an impressive ITIL-based IT service management solution to complement its enterprise asset and service management tools that just missed inclusion in our previous evaluation. Now, with the development, marketing, and sales muscle of IBM/ Tivoli behind it, the enhanced and rebranded Tivoli Service Request Manager is on its way to becoming a formidable competitor at the high end. iet Solutions. iet is now focusing its company and products on the service management market. The product has decent capabilities across the ITIL service support functions. Any functional limitations are balanced by lower costs for licensing, implementation, and management than most of the other products in the midsized enterprise market. Infra. Australian-based Infra announced its acquisition by EMC in March Infra has a full-featured, enterprise-class service management solution with broad functionality across the service management tools spectrum, a strong workflow engine, and robust service catalog functionality. The company has established a beachhead in the North American market with an increased marketing and sales presence and some large reference customers. Numara Software. Numara Software acquired UniPress Software and the FootPrints product in 2006, moving upmarket into the midsized enterprise market. Numara FootPrints notable ease of implementation and use makes it a solid contender for organizations looking to looking to step up the formality of their processes and controls without having to install a large and expensive suite of tools. Also from Numara Software, Numara Track-It! is the most widely installed help desk product with more than 50,000 customers. Best suited for organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees, the Numara Track-It! product can be an ideal entry point for organizations looking for basic help desk functionally combined with solid asset and license management capabilities. Service-now.com. One of the newer entrants in the service management market, Service-now. com is a pure SaaS offering. Whether hosted by Service-now or installed on in-house servers, Service-now.com retains all management responsibilities, alleviating an organization from the 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008

19 18 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q need to devote internal resources to these tasks. Companies we spoke with were impressed by the high speed and low cost to get up and running with a broad service management solution. Symantec. Altiris, acquired by Symantec in 2007, offers a full-featured service management solution in conjunction with asset and life-cycle tools. As a result, the product is particularly strong in asset and configuration management. Additional tools for remote control, desktop backup and recovery, network management, and security management allow the company to offer an integrated suite that should solve most of the needs of a PC-centric service desk. The packaging of the service desk suite as a component of the asset and life-cycle tool set led this offering to be something of a stealth product in the service desk market. Touchpaper Software. UK-based Touchpaper is a longtime vendor of service desk management tools. With about 1,800 customers (predominantly in Europe) and revenue in the range of $30 million per year, it is a midsized vendor targeting enterprises of 500 to 5,000 end users. Touchpaper has re-established its North American operations and currently has about 265 North American customers who appear, overall, to be quite satisfied with their implementations. Although not a standout in any area, the product has solid functionality across the key service desk modules. USU AG. USU, with only about 60 service desk customers located primarily in Germany and Eastern Europe, is included in our evaluation as a result of client interest in these geographies. It is primarily known for its IT infrastructure and asset management. Companies with a large commitment to other USU products may find a compelling offering due to the integration between the product modules. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Online Resource The online versions of Figure 2 and Figure 3 are Excel-based vendor comparison tools that provide detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. Data Sources Used In This Forrester Wave Forrester used a combination of four data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each solution: Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluation criteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications. Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of their product s functionality. We used findings from these product demos to validate details of each vendor s product capabilities. April 7, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

20 The Forrester Wave : Service Desk Management Tools, Q Customer reference calls. To validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also conducted reference calls with a minimum of two of each vendor s current customers. Ongoing client conversations. Many of these tools are in use at current Forrester clients and are the subject of inquiries or other discussions with Forrester analysts. Customer experiences with the evaluated tools and vendors also play a role in our evaluations. The Forrester Wave Methodology We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer references and products that don t fit the scope of our evaluation. After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires, demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies. We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies and/or other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document and then score the vendors based on a clearly defined scale. These default weightings are intended only as a starting point, and readers are encouraged to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based tool. The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and vendor strategies evolve. ENDNOTES 1 The quest for process improvement is the root cause of a universal interest in best practices and in frameworks such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and control objectives for information and related technology (COBIT). See the September 1, 2005, The Management Process Alphabet Soup report. 2 The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of standard IT terminologies such as a high-level definition of a change request that the United Kingdom Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to address the IT service support and delivery issues faced by IT infrastructure organizations. ITIL standards were designed to establish guidelines and a common language for operational processes, such as change management, problem resolution, service delivery, and resolution of customer inquiries. ITIL is a registered trademark and a registered community trademark of the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and is 2008, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited April 7, 2008