IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs SCSM comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while Microsoft is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.7. IBM holds a 0.8% mindshare in HDS, compared to Microsoft’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

403 Views
46 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SCSM

Read 26 SCSM reviews

849 Views
130 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

SCSM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Microsoft System Center Service Manager and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk compete in the IT service management category. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk often has the upper hand due to its broader feature set, especially in asset management and centralized ticket handling.

Features: SCSM features seamless Microsoft integration, automated orchestration, and ITIL process support. Its ecosystem supports components like Active Directory and Operations Manager, simplifying the automation of tasks. Conversely, IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers excellent service and asset management, providing a centralized system for handling complex tasks, an essential feature in large enterprises.

Room for Improvement: SCSM users report challenges with its complex customization and want better self-service and mobile support. On the other hand, IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is critiqued for an outdated graphical interface and lackluster user experience, which detracts from its otherwise sophisticated backend functionality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SCSM deployment can be resource-intensive, but Microsoft provides strong technical support to aid in the process. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers a simpler deployment but would benefit from improved support responsiveness to resolve issues faster.

Pricing and ROI: SCSM offers competitive pricing often bundled with other Microsoft products, providing enhanced ROI through integration. However, its confusing licensing model is a drawback. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has a straightforward, albeit expensive pricing structure, suited for large enterprises with high concurrent licensing fees. Despite its cost, it delivers high ROI, but the pricing might deter smaller businesses.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SCSM

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

SCSM

Ranking in Help Desk Software

11th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCSM is 1.6%, down from 1.7% 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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PraveenSharma3

UX Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Enhanced remote functionality complements intricate admin management

We are using it as co-management, working from SCCM and some from Intune. However, there are dissimilarities between SCCM and Intune, so we use SCCM for specific tasks or policies Currently, with the system, we have some remote tool functionality which is not available with Intune. We are also…

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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."

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

"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 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 is very easy to work with."

"The solution has been stable."

"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."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"For our cloud-based deployment of SCSM, the Autopilot is the best feature."

"The solution is quite easy to integrate with other Microsoft products."

"The support from Microsoft is good and we also have local support on the ground in Nigeria."

"It is quite scalable."

"The call logging is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very easy to use."

"SCCM provides remote tool functionality, which is not in Intune."

"I like the reporting service. SCSM has a good reporting service and analysis service for analysis requests."

"The solution's setup process is relatively straightforward due to the familiar deployment steps similar to other Microsoft solutions."

More SCSM pros

Cons

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

"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 solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"Once we had an issue with a desktop download that would not open."

"Mobile application integration would be an improvement."

"The major issues with SCSM include its severe slowness, especially on the client side, and the lack of comprehensive reporting tools."

"Resources for understanding compliance and relative compliance need to be made available."

"It would be better if they had a portal for administrators. It would help me use it from anywhere and connect to any device from anywhere. I can administer the solution without a VPN."

"Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, the support often lacks expertise, and response times are slow."

"The patch management aspect of the solution should be improved. It's quite complicated and not user-friendly. If your systems are not patched properly, you are unable to pull reports."

"They need more integration with open-source products."

More SCSM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 platform is competitively priced."

"The license for SCSM is cheap."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"It comes free with the enterprise agreement that we have, but the expense really is in having to buy another product to sit on top of it to make it work properly. You wind up having to buy additional support and additional product with their own support and maintenance costs on top of that."

"It is an expensive solution."

"Licensing can be complex and confusing."

"The price should be lower."

"The price of the solution could be better. My organization has an enterprise annual license with Microsoft which provides us support."

More SCSM pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Government

26%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about SCSM?

The solution offers good productivity at a low price point.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCSM?

We acquired SCSM for free with our Microsoft Endpoint Manager purchase, and we only paid for the integration process.

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What needs improvement with SCSM?

From an admin point of view, Intune has more features and is easier to manage compared to SCCM. SCCM is a little complex for the admin point of view. Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 55% of the time

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BMC Helix ITSM vs SCSM

Compared 16% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs SCSM

Compared 15% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs SCSM

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

June 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

SCSM

May 2025

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Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

System Center Service Manager

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

System Center Service Manager is a software product by Microsoft to allow organizations to manage incidents and problems. Microsoft states that the product is compliant with industry best practices such as the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). SCSM has integrated ITIL compliant fulfillment of service requests. Service requests are submitted by the end user in order to obtain information, access to a new application or the most common of all, password reset.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

Fibabanka, UMC Health System

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SCSM

June 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SCSM

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