IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] comparison

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IBM and OpenText are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and OpenText Service Manager [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

October 2026

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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

Automation Anywhere

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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Klemen Muhvič

Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.

Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team

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.

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MEKKAB Raouf

Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy

Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities

We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.

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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

"I have seen improvements across the board since using Automation Anywhere, and I can definitively say that it has saved us time, reduced errors, and improved team efficiency."

"The core RPA service that it provides and the stability that it has in maintaining that as a cloud service solution is a key enabler for us. Its stability is good, and the low-code/no-code setup that it has is very user-efficient."

"It removes demotivating, repetitive work from our teams."

"This is a great platform, and we are implementing the logic into the bots that they are using to automate."

"We have never not had a yearly ROI; we've always greatly exceeded the cost of, or the investment in, the tool and it is saving us more than millions of dollars a year."

"I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past five years and it is one of the best tools to automate manual tasks."

"The integration is helpful. We have quite a few use cases where we've integrated with Microsoft tools and local record systems, such as SAP and Vertex AI."

"Security is a top priority for us. To be allowed to automate different processes, we need to have a good set of controls around who is allowed to do what, and what credentials people can and can't use. It allows us to manage access make sure that we have full control."

More Automation Anywhere 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."

"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"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."

"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, so you have one big package and nothing is lost."

"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."

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

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"We think it’s worth switching over to HPE."

"The solution is simple to set up."

"It has features such as integration with Skype for Business, smart analytics, and smart ticketing."

"Stability, lower operation costs, and straight process implementation."

"Service Manager's best features are flexibility and customizability."

"Service Manager does what it should, but it's quite outdated."

"So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs."

"It's a complete service management suite; a complete management product used by the company worldwide for us."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] pros

Cons

"In the version that we have, there are some challenges with the browser-based applications, the cloning of the objects, and the solution's stability."

"The product falls behind in working with webhooks."

"I'd like to see the OCR feature be perfected. Today we get an accuracy ratio from OCR of around 40 percent to 50 percent only."

"The initial cost of Automation Anywhere, including license fees and integration costs, is high. It is challenging for business users to operationalize the tool independently."

"There are a lot of issues in the tool. There are a lot of breakdowns."

"I am looking for artificial intelligence and machine learning. I hope that they introduce them in A2019."

"Automation Anywhere has to be integrated with machine learning and AI systems to read images and videos, then put the information into another format."

"The product should improve on Voice Recognition and IoT pretty soon, as this is the next big thing in and I would like to see this upgraded in the next release."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly."

"The user interface is not very interesting."

"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 solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."

"The product is kind of clunky to use."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"Stability was always an issue until we did a full load and performance test, since then this is in good shape."

"It could have better user control of the user interface."

"The user interface was not really good, but they improved it a little bit."

"I think it brings uncertainty, and they're well aware of that."

"With the new version moving toward the codeless configuration is good, but it's losing flexibility."

"Part of our reason for moving away from Service Manager is that HP was not on the leading edge of the technology and was consequently being surpassed by SaaS offerings."

"My only concern is the flexibility of the product in smaller environments."

"The interface could be better. It's hard to integrate as there's no interface in place for the solutions to interface with each other."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the solution's pricing is reasonable."

"It's fine. However, I'm concerned with the credits in terms of the pricing for the AI models. It is understandable that the new ones are more expensive, but the base models, after doing the pricing conversion, cost about four to ten times as much as paying directly."

"Automation Anywhere is costlier than the general competition. That is aligned with the share of the market it has."

"Automation Anywhere falls within a mid-range price point when compared to other RPA tools on the market."

"The cloud-based version comes at an increased cost, although our clients are happy with the new features and have not complained about the pricing."

"We have purchased licenses, but are trying to obtain more bot programmer licenses."

"We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million."

"IQ Bots are very costly. It's not a sustainable bot for us as of now. We will look for better, alternate options for that."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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 is not cheap."

"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."

"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."

"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."

"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Performing Arts

11%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	162
Midsize Enterprise	86
Large Enterprise	565

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

See all answers

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

See all answers

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

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Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

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AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

Appian vs Automation Anywhere

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JIRA Service Management vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 14% of the time

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 13% of the time

Ameyo Fusion CX vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 9% of the time

Ivanti ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 7% of the time

SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 6% of the time

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ServiceNow vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

Clarity SM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

Zendesk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

November 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

October 2026

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

October 2026

Download OpenText Service Manager [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

SmartCloud Control Desk

Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

IBM

Demo not available

OpenText

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust integration capabilities, effective SLA integrations, automated workflows, and comprehensive reporting. Its flexibility and centralized request management enhance service efficiency, making it ideal for detailed issue tracking and resolution in IT environments.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is designed to streamline IT support, ticketing, and incident management. By integrating seamlessly with existing infrastructures, it centralizes service requests and IT asset management. Its automated processes ensure efficiency from initiation to resolution, reducing the chances of oversight. The platform's adaptability supports both on-premises and cloud deployments, making it suitable for industries like telecommunications and IT services. However, users often face challenges with support responsiveness, outdated interfaces, and difficulties with email integration, particularly affecting images and attachments.

What Are the Key Features of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk?

Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with various systems to enhance functionality.
SLA Integrations: Strong service level agreement management ensures SLAs are met.
Automated Workflow: Full automation of processes from start to resolution.
Robust Reporting: Comprehensive reporting tools for detailed insights.
Request Management: Centralized management of service requests and IT assets.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Seek?

Efficiency: Streamlines operations with automated processes, increasing productivity.
Flexibility: Adapts to organizational changes for better service delivery.
Reliability: Backed by IBM's trusted brand reputation.
Scalability: Scales with demand for growing businesses.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is widely implemented in telecommunications and IT services industries. Organizations utilize it for managing IT support, incident resolution, and system monitoring. Its ability to handle both internal and external requests effectively helps businesses streamline client communications and improve service management across different deployment models.

IBM

Service Manager on SaaS provides you with a cloud-based, industry leading IT Service Management solution.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

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

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