IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs LinkLive comparison

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and LinkLive are competitors in IT service management and communication solutions. IBM has an edge with its comprehensive features, though LinkLive is favored for easy deployment and integration.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk includes extensive IT asset management, change management, and a robust service catalog. LinkLive offers secure communication features focusing on omnichannel engagement, encryption, and effective customer interactions.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could enhance deployment simplicity, improve user interface intuitiveness, and streamline integration with legacy systems. LinkLive might expand its IT management features, bolster analytics capabilities, and enhance workflow automation options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: LinkLive is recognized for quick deployment, adaptability, and responsive customer service. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk provides thorough documentation and varied support options but has a more complex deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk involves higher initial costs but promises a solid ROI due to its comprehensive functionalities. LinkLive offers a more economical solution, delivering cost-effective ROI by focusing on communication enhancements.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LinkLive Report (Updated: September 2025).

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LinkLive

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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

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

LinkLive

Ranking in Help Desk Software

13th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Contact Center Platforms (6th), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LinkLive is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
LinkLive	0.4%
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk	1.1%
Other	98.5%

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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Emily Aubele

Quality Assurance Director at United Way of Pennsylvania

The functionality and efficiency have reduced our call wait times and support is unbelievably responsive

There are so many valuable features. One of the things that we really appreciate is the uptime. LinkLive rarely, if ever, goes down or disconnects calls. We appreciate that we don't have to be concerned about dropping calls or losing a customer mid-call as a result of those issues. It's also very easy to use. It's intuitive. We are able to easily transfer calls and get a customer to where they need to be if they have ended up in the wrong queue. We can also make changes to groups on the fly. The amount of self-service that you can do in the program is really helpful. In addition, all of your channels are within one interface. The other thing that's really nice is that now, there are two ways to access that interface. One is an app that's downloaded onto your machine, and another is via a URL. Depending on what you like, as an agent, you have those options. Both options do the same things. Our people who use the browser-based option love it. The single interface is really important because you don't want to have to jump all over the place or go from screen to screen. With everything in front of you, you can see it all. It allows the agent to work much more efficiently and effectively without having to look all over the place for what they need. When using that single interface to switch between modes on the fly, it's pretty seamless, in terms of supervisor-to-agent, agent-to-agent, and agent-to-customer communication. It's a one-stop shop. You can even work in multiple channels at the same time. You can handle a text and a chat, or a chat and a phone call, simultaneously. We also use the solution's AI quite a bit for our chat. The AI aspect is pretty important because it allows us to triage customers' needs without taking agent time. Using it, a customer can self-select. Plus, we find that a lot of our web users prefer a more anonymous contact for clarification of information they got while searching our website, which they now need more help with. The fact that we can translate that call from AI to a live agent is really helpful. By the time it gets to the live agent, there is a good sense of what the customer needs and what they're looking for. Our agent has more time to search for the needed resources, rather than gathering details about what the customer is looking for. It's a time-saver. It allows the customer to really identify what exactly it is they need and it does help answer some general questions that ultimately help us with customer eligibility. It measures all aspects of a call pretty well and we appreciate that. The dashboard we're currently using is a nice feature. I know that's being updated with workforce management, but the tool we currently use, the MMP (Measuring, Monitoring & Planning Portal) is fine for those quick reports.

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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 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."

"The solution has been stable."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"In the future, we may take advantage of LinkLive's video or phone capabilities, but we strictly use text chat now, so I would say that is most valuable to us at the moment."

"The presentation of calls within the applications used to access conference call forwarding is straightforward and user-friendly."

"It's very reliable and we haven't had much experience with any downtime or dropped calls, which, of course, is one of the most important things to us. That's been a big win for us."

"LinkLive gives us a central location for our communication channels and that is very important. I can go back and see if someone has a complaint. Although our users are spread out, everything, all the conversations, is housed in one place. I can keep up with the conversations. The interface works wonderfully."

"There are so many valuable features. One of the things that we really appreciate is the uptime. LinkLive rarely, if ever, goes down or disconnects calls. We appreciate that we don't have to be concerned about dropping calls or losing a customer mid-call as a result of those issues."

"Our agents find the authenticated session feature to be the most helpful. It can take 30 to 45 seconds to verify someone with verifying questions through digital banking, and we didn't have the capability of verifying questions through digital banking before LinkLive. This feature allowed us to work in partnership with our digital banking provider, who can see that a customer is within an authenticated digital banking session. They do not need to ask verifying questions again to ensure that the person is who they say they are. That is one of the nicest things for us, and especially for our agents."

"Being the president of our organization, I love the secured email because there are a lot of messages that I have to send out that are secure. There have not been any issues with sending the messages or with individuals receiving and viewing them."

"LinkLive makes us more progressive in terms of efficiency and productivity. It is just a better customer experience."

Cons

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"In our experience, the areas where there could be improvement are training, staff adoption, and getting the staff comfortable with utilizing the complexities of LinkLive, such as screen sharing."

"In the browser-based experience, I would love to see a hold button. Presently, you have to drag the hold music into a call and then drag it out. A hold button would really be easier, particularly if you have to put someone on hold multiple times."

"The notifications for incoming chats could be a little more obvious. Our organization doesn't have a call center, so we don't have someone sitting at the computer waiting for a chat to come in. They're busy with other work."

"The onboarding process could be enhanced by providing comprehensive training to all users, not just administrators."

"The initial enrollment of employees can be a little bit challenging. It tends to require the need to reach out to Link-Live support to iron out a bug or two."

"On the back-office side, it houses email addresses for when you look at the agent hunt groups. I can't use my work email address in my own online banking account because it messes up whether I'm an employee or a customer."

"I would like to see more video conferencing, some degree of mobile apps, and artificial intelligence. That's the wave of the future with healthcare. Our providers are all on-the-go, so anything that allows them to remain mobile and not have to go to a desk to take a phone call, would be a good addition."

"Our agents have made some requests for some automated responses and some ways that they could improve the way those get pushed out. Right now, the way that canned responses are set up, they could be set up with as many responses as you want. However, the one thing that they liked from our previous providers is that you could categorize responses. So, if you have a certain area where you might have four or five responses related to one topic, then you could easily just click on the topic and see your responses. That is one area which is not a huge deal, but it gives back those five seconds that you are looking for a response to get more lengthy responses out to a customer. It would be nicer to have that a little bit more available."

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."

"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."

"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."

"In terms of cost, LinkLive was similar to other products. I find it reasonable. Its features, for the cost, were a better deal comparatively speaking."

"The pricing is fair."

"You definitely get more bang for the money with LinkLive.You can get a more expensive product that does what this one does, and possibly more, but for the cost, it works perfectly with our core system."

"We have been very comfortable with the pricing. We are a smaller financial institution so pricing is always a factor. We feel that we are just getting a ton of value for what we are spending."

"The pricing is exceptionally competitive, and the value we receive from LinkLive for the cost is a significant advantage."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

59%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Revation LinkLive?

The presentation of calls within the applications used to access conference call forwarding is straightforward and user-friendly.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Revation LinkLive?

The pricing is exceptionally competitive, and the value we receive from LinkLive for the cost is a significant advantage.

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What needs improvement with Revation LinkLive?

The onboarding process could be enhanced by providing comprehensive training to all users, not just administrators. This would ensure that everyone is well-equipped to utilize the features effectiv...

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Product Reports

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Download LinkLive product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

Revation LinkLive

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

LinkLive is an advanced communication platform designed to elevate the way businesses interact with their customers securely, enhance personalized customer engagement and team collaboration. The platform utilizes a combination of human expertise and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide secure communication solutions, and improving operational efficiencies. It was formerly known as Revation Systems.

At its core, LinkLive unifies voice, video, chat, and email communications into a single, integrated platform. This consolidation enables businesses to offer a more cohesive and responsive customer service experience. Users can seamlessly switch between communication modes, ensuring that customer interactions are both flexible and efficient.

LinkLive places a strong emphasis on security and regulatory compliance, making it an ideal choice for sectors such as healthcare, finance, and government, where data protection is paramount. The platform incorporates end-to-end encryption, robust access controls, and audit trails to safeguard sensitive information and comply with industry regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, and more.

Leveraging AI and machine learning, LinkLive offers advanced personalization capabilities. It can analyze customer data in real-time to provide personalized interactions and recommendations. This level of insight helps businesses tailor their services to individual customer needs, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

Charles Larsen, a Senior Director at Banner Health, shared with us that LinkLive is "very reliable and we haven't had much experience with any downtime or dropped calls, which, of course, is one of the most important things to us. That's been a big win for us."

Emily Aubele, Quality Assurance Director at United Way of Pennsylvania, shared with us that they chose LinkLive over other vendors, because with LinkLive, "all of the applications are in-house, meaning the chat, the text—everything that you use—is developed and maintained internally by LinkLive. In the other systems, chat, text, and video were all third-party applications."

Sample Customers

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

1. AT&T 2. Verizon 3. T-Mobile 4. Sprint 5. Comcast 6. CenturyLink 7. Vodafone 8. Orange 9. Telefonica 10. BT Group 11. Deutsche Telekom 12. Telstra 13. NTT Communications 14. China Mobile 15. SoftBank 16. SK Telecom 17. Telecom Italia 18. Bell Canada 19. Rogers Communications 20. Telus 21. KDDI 22. Swisscom 23. Telkom Indonesia 24. Singtel 25. Etisalat 26. Ooredoo 27. Turkcell 28. Saudi Telecom Company 29. Telecom Egypt 30. PLDT 31. MTN Group 32. América Móvil

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LinkLive