IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Salesforce Service Cloud comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #26, while Salesforce is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 1.1% mindshare in HDS, compared to Salesforce’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

499 Views
484 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Salesforce Service Cloud

Read 55 Salesforce Service Cloud reviews

1,986 Views
914 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Salesforce Service Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Salesforce Service Cloud and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk are two significant players in the service management sector. Salesforce Service Cloud appears to have an edge with its comprehensive feature set and adaptability, while IBM SmartCloud Control Desk excels in asset and service request management.

Features: Salesforce Service Cloud offers case management, robust workflow automation, and integration capabilities with platforms such as Marketo. It provides automatic upgrades and customization options tailored to business needs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk provides excellent asset management, centralized request handling, and IT asset tracking.

Room for Improvement: Salesforce Service Cloud could improve its email integration, mobile app functionality, and pricing. Users seek better reporting and analytics integration. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk requires an updated user interface, better performance, and enhanced usability, addressing its outdated feel compared to competitors.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Salesforce Service Cloud is cloud-based, offering flexibility and easy access, with well-regarded customer service and technical support. While its standard support is mixed, premium support is favored. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk, typically on-premises, faces integration challenges but is praised for its stability. Technical support is satisfactory but could benefit from faster ticket resolution times.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce Service Cloud is considered pricey but offers a significant return on investment due to its extensive features and efficiency improvements. Price negotiation is advisable. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk, also expensive, targets large enterprises and justifies its cost through ROI. Both solutions offer value, although scalability and cost-effectiveness depend on organizational size and setup.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

September 2025

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Helped 869,760 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

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

Salesforce Service Cloud

Ranking in Help Desk Software

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (1st), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), IT Alerting and Incident Management (6th)

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 Salesforce Service Cloud is 2.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Salesforce Service Cloud	2.3%
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk	1.1%
Other	96.6%

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.

Read full review

MARIA PILAR CANDA

Assosiate Partner at Autana Business Partners

Improved customer service and post-sales support saves time

The solution could be more affordable as it's quite expensive for some organizations, particularly middle-sized companies. Additionally, finding technical talent for improving the solution is challenging. Configuring Flows in Salesforce Service Cloud is very difficult. There are very few technical people in the market capable of implementing all the flows that clients need at this moment. It's primarily a matter of talent limitation, and flow is the technical mechanism of Salesforce Service Cloud for process automation. In general, while they have the knowledge and help solve problems, finding the right person to address specific issues is very challenging.

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 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."

"The solution has been stable."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"It's a cloud tool, so it is easy to set up."

"With Salesforce Service Cloud, customers can have end-to-end visibility from inquiry to delivery."

"The strength lies in its ability to work cohesively with other systems, creating a centralized hub that enhances efficiency and collaboration across various functionalities within our organization."

"The instant input of feedback into the CRM systems by case management is one of the impactful features"

"The plug-ins that work with other standard systems have made the product industry-ready."

"The three major pillars of Salesforce Service Cloud are the SSL, Chatter, and the Dispatcher Console, which routes calls to the technicians."

"It’s feasible to configure the platform according to the specific processes utilised. Customization of the platform could be carried out based on the techniques we employ."

"In terms of visibility to my boss and the team, it does help a lot."

More Salesforce Service Cloud pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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 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 solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"There are some issues with backend connectivity in Salesforce Service Cloud."

"The main concern for me revolves around the speed of certain integrations."

"The solution's integration with the main ERP is a little cumbersome."

"Since customization can increase the cost from an implementation standpoint, we focus on showcasing Service Cloud's built-in features and possibilities."

"We're seeing a lot of automation and AI enhancements for improvements. This helps answer simple questions without manual intervention, saving time. We can improve by automating more of our solution-building process. Salesforce Service Cloud is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. It's constantly evolving, and we're always looking for ways to improve our use. The cloud services we use include CRM (Salesforce), financial (NetSuite), and people (Workday). These services are becoming more automated, with a lot happening in the AI space. We do a lot of modeling ourselves to find answers to questions, and our product team has introduced some AI enhancements."

"The pricing of the solution can be made cheaper."

"We've started using a couple of AI engines. I believe there's room for improvement there. For instance, when an agent receives a message like "My order is stuck midway, and the delivery guy isn't responding," there should be a pre-populated recommended response on the agent's screen. Instead of crafting a custom reply or searching through knowledge articles to find the delivery guy's contact, this should be the process."

"I'm not deeply engaged with this team, so I don't have extensive experience with it. As you mentioned, I haven't used it much yet, so my experience is limited."

More Salesforce Service Cloud cons

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."

"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 product is expensive. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."

"The price is too expensive."

"The solution is priced at 50 dollars a month per user."

"I believe that in our country, Colombia, we utilize this platform for the Latin American region. In terms of expenses, it's somewhat higher compared to other products. I would rate it as expensive and nine out of ten."

"Salesforce Service Cloud is expensive. I worked with ExactTarget over five years ago, and it was quite pricey then. Not everyone could afford it. Salesforce has different tiers for different kinds of users. It's expensive considering their features and services, but they offer best-in-class solutions."

"The price of the solution depends on how many users need access to it"

"Only enterprise businesses can afford the solution, and small companies cannot afford it."

"We pay a yearly licensing fee for Salesforce Service Cloud, which is expensive."

More Salesforce Service Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

15%

Performing Arts

Computer Software 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	19
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	24

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Service Cloud?

The approximate licensing costs for Salesforce Service Cloud are around three hundred dollars a year per user.

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What needs improvement with Salesforce Service Cloud?

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What is your primary use case for Salesforce Service Cloud?

We have many clients with Salesforce Service Cloud and numerous use cases. The main use is in the sales area rather than the marketing area. We utilize it for customer service and customer post-sal...

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Salesforce Service Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Pega CRM vs Salesforce Service Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Fusion Service vs Salesforce Service Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

September 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Service Cloud

September 2025

Download Salesforce Service Cloud product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

Service 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

Service Cloud is fully customizable support and help desk that provide faster, smarter service that will increase loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. From call-center software to self-service portals, our service solutions enhance your customer service with more responsive, more intuitive, more flexible support that anticipates customer needs.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

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

Stanley Black & Decker, Coca-Cola, Activision, Wells Fargo, Spotify, Aldo, Philips, The Red Cross, Blue Shield of California, Sprouts Farmers Market, Direct Energy Solar, Inspirato, Kiva

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

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