BMC Helix ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk comparison

BMC and IBM are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. BMC is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8, while IBM is ranked #27. BMC holds a 10.4% mindshare in HDS, compared to IBM’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of IBM users who would recommend it.

BMC Helix ITSM

Read 78 BMC Helix ITSM reviews

5,456 Views
3,489 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

401 Views
197 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

BMC Helix ITSM

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

BMC Helix ITSM and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk compete in the IT service management category. While BMC Helix ITSM seems to have the upper hand due to its flexibility and extensive ITIL process coverage, IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is favored for its straightforward asset management capabilities.

Features: BMC Helix ITSM offers strong incident management, integration features, and change and service request management tools. Its robust AR System allows for extensive customization tailored to user needs. Users value its reporting and automation capabilities. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is appreciated for its service request and IT asset management features, effectively catering to larger enterprises needing comprehensive asset control.

Room for Improvement: BMC Helix ITSM users desire improvements in user interfaces and simplified customization options to avoid hindrances in efficiency. There is also a call for better reporting capabilities and responsive support. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk needs a more modern, user-friendly graphical interface and smoother integrations to enhance usability, with users seeking a more contemporary aesthetic.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC Helix ITSM supports deployment across on-premises, private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. However, users report mixed experiences with customer service, needing better communication. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk supports primarily on-premises deployment with reliable technical support, although user experience varies based on the support plan.

Pricing and ROI: BMC Helix ITSM's pricing is often considered high, suitable for larger businesses with specific customization needs that justify the cost over time. It emphasizes analyzing licensing needs to manage budgets effectively. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk appeals to medium to large enterprises with robust features and straightforward licensing, balancing cost-effectiveness for large-scale deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC Helix ITSM vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix ITSM vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

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Helped 849,963 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

BMC Helix ITSM

Ranking in Help Desk Software

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (4th)

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

27th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 10.4%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Fairoz Gadad

Project Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Development team is quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product

BMC's technical support team needs to improve. Right now, the problem over here is we are not getting the exact answers on time. Their engineers are mainly based in the US or Israel, and we get comprehensive dedicated support. Some of the Indian customer service representatives are also outstanding. Unfortunately, in the past six months or seven months, I've been getting brand-new engineers. Either they're not entirely aware of most cases, or they don't know how to troubleshoot further. So for any product to be stable and work correctly, BMC must ensure that customer service is excellent. Even though if your product is a hundred percent, we'll have problems marketing it to our customers.

Read full review

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible

Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The ease of use and integration made it a worthwhile investment, since we did some integrations with other tools making our lives easier."

"It provides a good user experience."

"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM for us are CMDB and discovery."

"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the ease to use and integration."

"Initial setup is straightforward, and if you follow best practices, then future enhancements will be smoother."

"Reports have helped us to improve our IT processes. The main benefit is providing the right information to our decision makers."

"It's one of the top solutions on the market for ITSM capabilities."

"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are its customization ability and the addition of new features. As a built-in Suite, it covers all that is needed in the IT guidelines, which is good. Each customer has their own needs, and the customization the solution provides is beneficial."

More BMC Helix ITSM pros

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."

"The solution has been stable."

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

Cons

"SmartIT could include PR. This would help us greatly in bridging the gap between Remedy's views and SmartIT."

"Some parts of the solutions are using the old interface."

"BMC Helix ITSM should have an easy-to-use user interface."

"To raise any ticket, there are too many fields to be filled and it makes generating tickets very time-consuming."

"Log in process is unnecessarily complicated."

"It has created more layers of bureaucracy."

"The notifications that the solution is providing are very helpful, they should keep improving them for the future."

"The interface should be more user-friendly, and the customization should be easier."

More BMC Helix ITSM cons

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper."

"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. The solution is expensive."

"Just make sure you really sit down and look at what you will be using per user, therefore you will not be surprised with a big bill. You do not want every user having every license, it really is not needed."

"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."

"The cost is relatively high, especially for the BMC Controller application. However, the expense is justified by the standard and reliable features it offers. This product's reputation in the market is strong, providing assurance in terms of data and other considerations."

"If Customer and IT agents are happy, that is one of the greatest ROI. However, one of the major factors is Leadership, because at the end they have to justify the cost."

"The price of BMC Helix ITSM could improve their price."

"The solution's pricing should come down."

More BMC Helix ITSM pricing and cost advice

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?

If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within depart...

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What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?

In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. The recent move to a new platform is bene...

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What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?

I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My company uses BMC Helix ITSM for IT service management processes.

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Comparisons

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Compared 57% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs BMC Helix ITSM

Compared 11% of the time

OpenText Service Management Automation X (SMAX) vs BMC Helix ITSM

Compared 3% of the time

Zendesk vs BMC Helix ITSM

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs BMC Helix ITSM

Compared 3% of the time

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ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix ITSM

April 2025

Download BMC Helix ITSM product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy

SmartCloud Control Desk

Overview

BMC Helix ITSM is a cutting-edge IT service management platform that leads the service management industry. It is built natively for mobile with an intuitive, beautiful, people-centric user experience that makes your whole organization more productive. This platform leverages artificial intelligence to automate and streamline various service management processes. In doing so, it will ultimately make your organization more efficient. This simple-to-use platform is capable of handling even your organization’s most advanced management requirements.

BMC Helix ITSM is a predictive platform that does not simply wait for problems to occur. The advanced analytics software aims to improve your organization’s efficiency by spotting weak areas and then proposing solutions. This platform can improve your resource deployment efficiency by as much as 45% .This is why it is trusted by corporations across a variety of industries.

Key Features

Some of BMC Helix ITSM’s key features include:

Solves service issues in a way that makes you more efficient. BMC Helix ITSM employs advanced analytic software that searches for areas where your organization can drive efficiencies to provide the best possible service.
Groups issues that recur in a way that streamlines both analysis and incident management. It uses artificial intelligence to identify and solve groups of incidents in real time. The AI automates these processes, which can prove both tedious and time-consuming.
Securely and seamlessly provides services across multi-cloud environments with “a single pane of glass” interface. This allows you to be highly flexible. You can configure your services in a number of different ways without having to worry that your multi-cloud environment won’t be able to support your service management.
The ability to view all of your management data in a way that provides you with clear insights into your system’s management. BMC Helix ITSM enables you to create custom reports and dashboards. This makes it possible for you to see any and all significant trends in your operations and services data.

Reviews from Real Users

BMC Helix ITSM’s software stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two of these are the robust activity tracking features and the lightweight nature of the solution.

A PeerSpot user who is a technical Program Manager and Site Lead at a computer software company notes the nature of Helix’s task tracking when they write, “The most valuable features I have found are the activity logs. Additionally, the other features where you are able to continuously address issues and are able to annotate notes inside to convey them to the customer. The customer can read the notes and are able to know where you are in the procedures and process of fixing the problem for them. It has a good interactive piece for dialogue with customers where you do not have to interact with them personally, but they can do it on their own just by going into that activity log. This is great for the customer to have the ability to find out how things are being progressively taken care of.”

Another PeerSpot user, who is a Practice Director of Global Infrastructure Services at a computer software company, notes, “Many other tools are similar. I've used these tools and find that they meet my requirements. Helix is more lightweight than these tools. It's a traditional tool that was developed more than 10 years ago. Ease of use is the operative word.”

BMC

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix ITSM vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

Free Report: BMC Helix ITSM vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

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