In-Depth

BMC Revamps Mid-Market IT Service Management Offering

Targets mid-market customers with ITSM aspirations

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 04/03/2007

There’s gold in the mid-market according to many ISVs. The latest evidence: BMC Software Corp. last week announced an update to its IT service management offering, ITSM Express, which targets the mid-market.

The new ITSM 2.0 ships with revamped discovery, configuration, and knowledge management tools. It also includes a new integration engine that supports out-of-the-box connectivity between ITSM Express and BMC’s Service Desk Express.

BMC officials position ITSM 2.0 as a modular offering designed to plug into (and complement) its other mid-market products—such as Service Desk Express. The value-add, officials claim, is that ITSM Express gives mid-market customers a one-stop shop for compliance, change management, performance, and configuration management, identity management, and—of course—monitoring of all kinds.

BMC representatives believe the attractiveness of a single vendor, all-in-one ITSM solution could be attractive to mid-market customers who might otherwise continue to sit out the ITSM wave.

"BMC has brought our experience in integrated management solutions to the mid-market, providing better solutions to help businesses grow IT as their business grows," said Jim Grant, senior vice president and general manager for enterprise service management with BMC, in a statement. "BMC is providing organizations with the flexibility they need to manage their IT systems and deliver value to the business. BSM is a realistic goal for all business sizes. Customers can buy what they need to buy, when they need to buy it."

ITSM isn’t a BMC-specific acronym. It’s actually a generic term that—in its most common usage—describes the practice of managing large-scale IT deployments from a business-centric (or process-first) perspective, as opposed to the IT-centric perspective that (ITSM proponents allege) typically predominates.

ITSM efforts typically focus on standardizing the ways in which IT interacts with line-of-business customers. In many cases, ITSM is linked with quality improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma, which are frequently associated with large, Fortune 500 or Global 2000 enterprises.

BMC officials insist that ITSM can be a mid-market-friendly practice, too. In this regard, they argue, ITSM Express 2.0 brings many of the service automation, resource optimization, and event management features that are commonly associated with ITSM down from the Global 2000 mountain. During last week’s launch, BMC flagged a canned testimonial from one such customer—Drugstore.com.

"We need IT that goes beyond supporting our business and can actually help us improve our margins, lower costs, and maintain a competitive edge," said Keith McCabe, IT director for Drugstore.com, in a statement. "With [fewer] resources than a large enterprise company, we require complete solutions, like BMC ITSM Express, that are relatively easy to install and can be phased into our environments over time and as needed."