By Dick Stark

Are you ready for a revolution? This is an opportunity for solutions that will revitalize the ITSM space, help IT be more relevant, and get people excited again about what’s possible.

So proclaimed Paul Avenant, President of BMC’s ESM group in its ITSM Launch Event held last Thursday in Houston and broadcast worldwide. BMC announced new releases of all its ITSM offerings simultaneously—Remedy, Remedy-on-Demand, FootPrints, Remedyforce and Track-IT. So, was this a big deal?  Yes, BMC, unlike HP and CA is fighting back aggressively against ServiceNow, which is taking ITSM market share. This was a very good showing:

First, Remedy version 8 is available now and is a real winner.  BMC’s beta testing program this time included more than 200 customers which guaranteed to eradicate most of the bugs before general availability, an important lesson from version 7.604. Other features included:

• Totally revamped SRM with links, submitted requests, and popular knowledge all on the same page.
• New data management tool to simplify on-boarding and data synchronization.
• Enhanced best picture view with fewer fields on the screen.
• Chat and other social media support.
• Hub and Spoke model which allows those organizations with several disparate Remedy (or other ITSM systems) to have a central Hub to collect and assign tickets.
• Significant improvements in asset management resulting in a 40% CMDB performance improvement.
• Simpler. Version 8 offers a simpler and faster user interface for mobility.  Additionally all documentation is available in PDF (no more hard copies) in a searchable Wiki format.

Next, BMC has just released version 11.5 of FootPrints, BMC’s mid-market service management offering.  New features include:

• An improved user interface that significantly improves the user experience.
• Artificial intelligence support to auto suggest solutions for more rapid ticket close-out.
• Improved service catalog descriptions and costing.
• Twitter and FaceBook social media support. For example, if the email server is down a Twitter feed can automatically alert the service desk.
• Better integration with AssetCore and more intelligent deployment and patch management.

Finally, Matt Dircks, Vice President, R&D, Mid-Market Solutions, announced that Remedyforce, BMC’s cloud based offering, with more than 300 customers is the fastest growing ITSM product ever. (RightStar has already implemented 71 Remedyforce accounts, about 25% of the overall total.) New features of the just released Remedyforce Summer12 version include:

• A new Release Management module and Pink ITIL certification for 9 other modules.
• Improved ability to configure SRM and Self-service.
• More than 50 new customer requested enhancements.

BMC closed the session by highlighting its 20 years of service management experience across all platforms. Paul Avenant concluded by stating that BMC is, “currently the #1 provider of choice in all ITSM markets. Real power is real choice and no one offers more ITSM options than BMC.”