The Forrester Wave™: Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 2008

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.