ManageEngine announced a managed services edition of their help desk software – ServiceDesk Plus. The new release is a complete web-based integrated package, including incident and service request management, self-service portal, knowledge base, IT asset management, even purchase and contract management. The new software is available in either a Standard Edition, providing the full range of basic help desk management functions, with a knowledge base and self service portal; or Professional Edition, which includes all the features found in the Standard Edition plus complete asset management.
Managed services allow organizations outsource …

Cloud-based IT Service Management pioneer, Service-now.com is holding their annual user conference titled “Knowledge” at San Diego on April 18 – 22, 2010 at the Omni San Diego Hotel. The 4th annual conference of the SaaS player will officially start on April 20, with pre-conference sessions happening on the days before. The agenda has not been fixed yet and the call for papers is on.
Last year’s user conference was attended by 300 people, most of them being customers and partners from the Service-now eco-system.
User conferences are a good thing. It …

IT management has become an integral part of any enterprise and the choices that are available out there make it easy for any IT team to keep watch. Vendors like IBM, BMC from the Big 4 league and solutions from the point-product vendors like IpSwitch, Solarwinds, ManageEngine etc. have given IT across the globe the ability to keep track of what is happening in their bedrooms! These tools also become important for the IT support team during incident management or problem management.
Some of these tools have integration for mobile devices, …

This is interesting. I just made my post yesterday about Social Networking and the help desk and I hear about a vendor who has integrated some sort of social media into a help desk software product. In this case, ManageEngine integrated Twitter with the customer help desk software.
A little background first. When customers feel satisfied or frustrated, they generally vent out their feelings and opinions by calling support or emailing them. If they don’t get any response, they blog about their experiences. With Twitter, it just became easier. 140 characters …

HDI Announces the 2009 Annual Practices & Salary Report, Presents an Overall Look at the State of the IT Support Industry

HDI, the world’s largest membership association for help desk and IT service and support professionals and the premier certification body for the industry, today announced the 2009 Annual Practices & Salary Report, a comprehensive study that presents an overall look at the state of the IT support industry. The report shows that the technical support industry is working hard to maintain its commitment to the service and support of end-users …

So finally one of the Big 4 – BMC Software has taken their service desk offering to the cloud. BMC Software announced this strategic alliance at Dreamforce 2009, Salesforce.com’s premier cloud-computing event. This new alliance will help BMC put its IT management solutions on the Force.com platform.
Not Remedy
BMC is planning to put the Service Desk Express application on Force.com and will deliver cloud-enabled service desk, self-service and inventory management capabilities.
BMC mentioned that it is currently scheduled to be available in the second quarter of calendar year 2010. This is interesting …

AUSTIN, Texas – (Business Wire) Spiceworks™, Inc. released a new plug-in for its free social IT management software application, which enables IT professionals to automatically regulate the power consumption of networked computers. The downloadable Power Manager plug-in – developed in cooperation with Intel Corporation – is designed to link everyday network and systems management tasks with green IT initiatives. Spiceworks estimates that if half its 800,000 users worldwide deploy the new power management plug-in, they could save more than $500 million in annual electricity costs and eliminate 3 million tons …

Combination of Modern SaaS and PinkVERIFY Designation Provides Customers With Unrivaled ITSM Tool Purchasing Confidence
SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwire – July 16, 2009) – Service-now.com, the pioneer of modern SaaS for IT service automation, today announced the achievement of PinkVERIFY status for support of eleven IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes. The designation is only applied to IT service management (ITSM) tools objectively assessed by Pink Elephant as meeting the functional requirements for ITIL compatibility.
“Service-now.com has shown a commitment to IT best practice with the PinkVERIFY certification,” said David Ratcliffe, President of …

Eastern Mountain Sports has chosen InfraDesk, On Demand Service Desk, to increase help desk application functionality not available in previous app TriActive
BEDFORD, MA, June 10, 2009 – Eastern Mountain Sports, a leading outdoor retailer, has replaced their TriActive help desk application with InfraDesk, an On Demand Service Desk. By implementing InfraDesk, Eastern Mountain Sports has reduced infrastructure costs, adopted a streamlined workflow and integrated a complete knowledge base.
Key drivers for making the switch included the cost associated with an upcoming …

Enterprise SaaS Mashup Brings Together Two Best-of-Breed Technologies Delivering Customers Unmatched Value and Results

HDI 2009

CLARK, N.J.–RightAnswers, Inc., the recognized leader in providing self-service and IT knowledge management solutions, today announced a technology partnership with Service-now.com – the pioneer of IT service management via SaaS. RightAnswers offers full integration with Service-now.com …