IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs IFS Cloud Platform comparison

IBM and IFS are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while IFS is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 0.9% mindshare in HDS, compared to IFS’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of IFS users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

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49 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IFS Cloud Platform

Read 30 IFS Cloud Platform reviews

579 Views
67 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

IFS Cloud Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IFS Cloud Platform and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk are prominent players in the cloud service and enterprise management markets. IFS Cloud Platform may have an advantage due to its flexible integration and superior industry standards, yet IBM gains strength with its robust incident and asset management capabilities.

Features: IFS Cloud Platform includes a complex pricing matrix, rich warehouse functionality, and customizable components, enabling in-house development. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk excels with a robust service catalog, CMDB-based architecture, and strong incident management. Both provide significant enterprise management solutions and flexible integration options.

Room for Improvement: IFS Cloud Platform could enhance its end-user interface, error messaging, and handle high-volume transactions better. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk needs a more modern user interface and improved graphical elements. Both systems should improve user experience and functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IFS Cloud Platform supports hybrid and private cloud deployments. Customer service quality varies across regions. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is typically used on-premises, and users note a need for streamlined support. Both platforms aim for consistent global support, yet face challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IFS Cloud Platform offers user-based pricing, competitive against ERP rivals like SAP, but potentially expensive for smaller businesses. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk employs a yearly license model, generally more costly but suitable for larger firms. Both show good ROI post-implementation, though IFS could provide a scalable financial edge over time.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. IFS Cloud Platform Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. IFS Cloud Platform

June 2025

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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

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

IFS Cloud Platform

Ranking in Help Desk Software

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM (20th), Customer Experience Management (7th), Field Service Management (1st), ERP (13th), Activity Based Costing Software (7th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (2nd), Local Government CRM (8th), IT Asset Management (10th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (11th), License Management (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IFS Cloud Platform is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

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.

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Brendan Fisher

IFS Applications Consultant at Zest Business Process Management Ltd

Robust, customizable, and modern

IFS is a very large and complex software, and implementation of IFS can be challenging and may lead to a difficult lengthy project. It can take between 12 and 24 months in some cases to deploy. I have found that not all clients are fully aware of how big the task is that they're undertaking when they make a decision to move to software like this. Companies need to be more aware of the complexity of an ERP implementation project and while I fully recommend moving to IFS, it is not easy and does require business change when adopting an ERP solution. New features are a difficult ask - I work across multiple industries and everyone would probably choose a different feature. Maybe BIM in Construction or Customs link-ups for importers/exporters.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution has been stable."

"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."

"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."

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

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"The platform is reliable and stable."

"IFS has been completely rebuilt, modernized, and cloud-based so we don't need bulky software installations."

"I like the connectivity and interfaces. In V10, it's easy to modify the interfaces and layouts, but it's becoming more complicated in the cloud. IFS is excellent at asset maintenance and incident management. They have specialized modules for IFS that cover incident and asset management and everything else connected to finance. The reporting in IFS is also easy to use."

"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."

"The main reason for the ERP project was to bring together our fourteen sites, which had until then worked in separate silos."

"The most valuable feature is the distribution module."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users."

"One of our favorite features is the "Info-Zone", which provides operational intelligence in flight and in context to guide both business users and support teams to productivity."

More IFS Cloud Platform pros

Cons

"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."

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

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"Technical support could be improved."

"IFS Applications can improve the reporting capabilities and increase the speed of feedback time in the IFS Applications. This would help with the overall performance of the solution and provide better experiences for customers."

"The solution needs to improve its documentation and user-friendliness."

"It would be ideal if, in the future, the product could incorporate IoT and blockchain elements. We'd like to explore more of these types of features going forward."

"The CRM was shaky and although this improves in Apps 10, there is room for improvement."

"There are certain digital features that need to be incorporated, such as IOP."

"The support provided by IFS Applications has room for improvement. I'm based in Poland, and when my company had an issue, finding people from IFS to give my company the support it needed was difficult."

"The integration is a bit complex, and post-implementation support services need to be improved. They have a service center based out of Sri Lanka. The support aspect is good, but the response time is a little slower than we anticipated. In the next release, it would be better if Warehouse Management could be improvised. They have a product line that's a data warehouse management system, but it's still premature and requires a bit of enhancement."

More IFS Cloud Platform cons

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."

"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."

"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"

"IFS Applications are competitive in terms of pricing compared to other vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Epicor. They are generally cheaper, especially for licensing costs."

"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."

"The additional cost that comes with the solution includes the overhead of the people who are trying to fix the tool issues. These people are trying to reproduce the issue and report it to the technical support and testing with them which is huge. It is the cost of quality in the end."

"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."

"Ask for all-inclusive pricing, as they are pretty flexible if you ask for custom models."

"The product is reasonably priced."

More IFS Cloud Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about IFS Applications?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?

The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive features and minimal need for customization. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.

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What needs improvement with IFS Applications?

I am not able to recall much about batch. Documentation-wise, they need more. There is not much available online, and the documentation availability is on the lower side compared to other products,...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 35% of the time

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Compared 35% of the time

Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 30% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

SAP ERP vs IFS Cloud Platform

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Maximo vs IFS Cloud Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central vs IFS Cloud Platform

Compared 10% of the time

SAP S/4HANA vs IFS Cloud Platform

Compared 9% of the time

ServiceNow vs IFS Cloud Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More IFS Cloud Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

June 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

IFS Cloud Platform

June 2025

Download IFS Cloud Platform product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud

Overview

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

IFS is the world’s leading provider of Industrial AI and enterprise software for hardcore businesses that make, service, and power our planet. Our technology enables businesses which manufacture goods, maintain complex assets, and manage service-focused operations to unlock the transformative power of Industrial AI™ to enhance productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. Industrial AI is IFS.ai.

IFS Cloud is a fully composable AI-powered platform, designed for ultimate flexibility and adaptability to our customers’ specific requirements and business evolution. It spans the needs of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Information Technology Service Management (ITSM), and Field Service Management (FSM). IFS technology leverages AI, machine learning, real-time data and analytics to empower our customers to make informed strategic decisions and excel at their Moment of Service™.

IFS

Sample Customers

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

China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia.

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. IFS Cloud Platform

June 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. IFS Cloud Platform

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