BMC sells more software via SaaS

Industry analysis by Beth Schultz, plus the latest news headlines.

IT service management software makers want customers to know that they get it. The vendors now know software that costs significant cash and requires too much time to install isn’t on any IT budget for 2010. That’s why many of the market-leading management vendors spent much of the previous two years revamping their suites to be made available via software-as-a-service delivery models.

IT management software-as-a-service

BMC takes service desk to the cloud via Salesforce.com

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IT service management software makers want customers to know that they get it. The vendors now know software that costs significant cash and requires too much time to install isn’t on any IT budget for 2010. That’s why many of the market-leading management vendors spent much of the previous two years revamping their suites to be made available via software-as-a-service delivery models.

IT management software-as-a-service

BMC takes service desk to the cloud via Salesforce.com

The latest SaaS-management news comes from BMC. The company announced Tuesday it added another SaaS-enabled product to its IT service management suite. BMC, which partnered with Salesforce.com in 2009 to bring service desk apps to cloud environments, will also offer its Remedy software in an on-demand model by the end of the second quarter 2010. The product news expands upon the company’s plans to help customers adopt management software in an on-premise model, via services or hosted in cloud computing environments.

“Customers want an option to pay for software as they go, and IT service management software, in particular, is well-suited to a SaaS delivery model,” says Paul Avenant, vice president of products at BMC. “Our first offering targeted less mature customers, and now we are offering the full Remedy suite of rich IT management capabilities via SaaS.”

Remedy ITSM on Demand includes all the modules of the on-premise software, yet will be delivered in a Web-based, pay-as-you-go subscription model. Customers will be able to take advantage of the integration with BMC’s Atrium configuration management database as well as ITIL processes such as service desk, incident, problem, change, release, asset, service request and service-level management. BMC also notes that customers can alternate to and from SaaS-delivered and on-premise software models, depending on what their business needs are at any given time. Industry watchers suggest that flexibility is required with tough economic conditions, but also note software offered via a service could attract smaller customers to BMC’s typically enterprise-level products.

“In today's tight economy, both enterprise and SMB IT buyers are looking for options that enable them to match spending to business requirements,” said Mary Johnston Turner, research director, Enterprise System Management Software at IDC, in a statement. “IDC expects the system management software-as-a-service market will top $1 billion by 2013. The availability of Remedy ITSM On Demand, along with the previously announced BMC Service Desk Express on Force.com, means that BMC will be an important option for both enterprise and SMB customers to consider as this market matures.”

Competitor Service-now.com, which some industry watchers say pioneered IT service management SaaS offerings, continues to argue that legacy management applications from BMC, CA, HP and IBM can’t easily be retrofitted into a service model. IBM has its Tivoli Live Monitoring Services, CA also makes its apps available as subscription services, and HP sells service management and other capabilities as SaaS as well.

Schultz is a longtime IT journalist. You can email her or find her here.