Gartner Magic Quadrant: IT Service Support Management Tools

Gartner, Inc. (IT)‘s most recent Magic Quadrant report  builds on the reports the company has been releasing all summer and should be of particular interest to managed services providers (MSPs). It covers IT service support management tools (ITSSM).

According to Gartner, ITSSM tools go beyond basic IT service desk tools, providing automation and governance modules. ITSSM tools enable IT to manage incidents, problems, changes and service requests throughout their life cycles at a more efficient and effective rate.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for ITSSM Tools

The IT research firm evaluates each vendor on two categories: ability to execute and completeness of vision.

The ability to execute grouping includes product/service, overall viability, sales execution, marketing execution and customer experience. Market understanding, marketing strategy, sales strategy and sales strategy were criteria for the second category.

Leaders

Gartner said vendors in this quadrant met the criteria for both completeness of vision and ability to execute. No vendors, however, placed into this category.

Challengers

To place into this quadrant, vendors must have shown the ability to provide tools with the basic required feature sets, but have yet to break through to providing products that truly represent the future vision of the ITSSM tool market, Gartner said.

ServiceNow and BMC Software met Gartner’s requirements for the Challengers quadrant.

Niche Players

The IT research firm said vendors in this quadrant show strengths in particular areas of ITSSM, but have not invested in satisfying all of the requirements to demonstrate completeness of vision and ability to execute.

CA Technologies (CA), IBM (IBM), Cherwell Software, East Vista, HP (HPQ), Axios Systems, FrontRange, Hornbill, LANDesk, SerenaSoftware, ManageEngine were placed into the Niche Players quadrant

Visionaries

No vendors made it into the Visionaries quadrant.

“The IT service desk function continues to grow and mature, resulting in the ITSSM tools market’s emergence,” Gartner said. “Tool functionality has been built on top of existing toolsets over time. However, in the ITSSM tool market, product selection criteria are more focused on enabling the tool to evolve to keep pace with new technology and user demands.”

Recently, Gartner released the results for its Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development (MADP) Platforms. Gartner also published its Magic Quadrant report for mobile device management (MDM) in May to help enterprise buyers navigate the MDM market, including some familiar vendors, such as AirWatch, MobileIron, BoxTone, and Tangoe.