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CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager vs. Microsoft System Center Service Manager

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    CA Service Management

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/ACA Service Management, including CA Desk Manager, is a fully-featured ITSM platform, now from Broadcom. It competes with BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, FrontRange ITSM, Cherwell Service Management etc. It is based on technology acquired by CA in 2010 with Nimsoft, and is now supported by Broadcom since the 2018 acquisition.N/A

    Microsoft System Center Service Manager

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft System Center Service Manager is an integrated platform that is designed for automating and adapting IT Service Management best practices to an organization’s requirements. The platform includes built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, change control and asset lifecycle management.N/A
    Pricing
    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager and Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    Feature
    CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
    8.6
    6 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    7.8
    7 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.76 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Expert directory8.75 Ratings7.03 Ratings
    Service restoration8.46 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    Self-service tools8.66 Ratings8.75 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications7.96 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation9.76 Ratings9.76 Ratings
    ITSM reports and dashboards7.55 Ratings7.16 Ratings
    ITSM asset management
    Comparison of ITSM asset management features of CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager and Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    Feature
    CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
    9.2
    6 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    8.2
    7 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Configuration mangement9.76 Ratings9.86 Ratings
    Asset management dashboard10.03 Ratings8.77 Ratings
    Policy and contract enforcement8.03 Ratings6.05 Ratings
    Change management
    Comparison of Change management features of CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager and Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    Feature
    CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
    9.1
    6 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Microsoft System Center Service Manager
    6.7
    6 Ratings
    22% below category average
    Change requests repository9.06 Ratings6.16 Ratings
    Change calendar8.64 Ratings6.05 Ratings
    Service-level management9.55 Ratings8.05 Ratings
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    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
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    Medium-sized Companies
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
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    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
    Score4.5 out of 10
    Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
    Score4.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    8.8
    (7 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    4.1
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CA Service ManagementMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Broadcom
    It is a suitable tool for a large organization with extensive user needs. It is not for a small shop as it may be over-engineered for smaller organizations that don't have teams that can manage a solution of this size. It does have some significant hardware and configuration needs, but that should not deter customers from deploying it in-house. I've seen it deployed in the cloud as well as in-house; the downside to deploying it as a hosted solution is you're forever at the mercy of the vendor for customizations, and they cost an arm and a leg. The simplest things take a long time and cost much more money than necessary, so you can't truly get a custom solution and end up with mostly vanilla services (unless you have very deep pockets.)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I think any organization that runs windows on their computers that is size over 50 workstations and looking for a complete package to manage their windows machines must have Microsoft System Center Service Manager, especially if they have Windows servers and VMs. The capability of managing multiple devices at ones can save a lot of time for the IT jobs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Broadcom
    • A large community where, if help is needed, is usually very helpful and quick to respond.
    • Various sites with good information on various issues. If you have a problem, there's a good chance some else already had it and documented it.
    • Fairly easy installation of the product if recommendations are followed and prep-work is done.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • This tool is used to track support requests among our IT staff.
    • We use this tool to automate some more routine tasks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Broadcom
    • The right-click feature is disabled in this application and users are unable to copy and paste with mouse or touchpad.
    • The application also freezes quite a bit and a user will have to quite often close and reopen browser to get it functioning properly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Kind of clunky.
    • Takes a lot a lot a lot of configuration.
    • There is a lot of jargon to learn to be able to use it to its full ability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Broadcom
    While the concepts of Service Desk and EITM were solid. The user interface, tool capabilities, and integrations fell behind the rest of the industry. Too often it seemed like CA bought and rebranded products without fully integrated them with their other products. It was a coat of paint, without the parts under the hood being updated. The overhead for administration was too high and the reporting capabilities were absolutely amongst the worst I've seen.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The customer support service is excellent. They help from start/deployment through to any time later on. They responded quickly and resolved our issues professionally and in no time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Broadcom
    We are too integrated with CA Service Desk Manager to disassociate anytime soon. We found the more we used the product the more we needed to customize it in order to better integrate with our business processes. There are other alternatives that have many built-in features that had we have foreseen our future requirements... would have chosen ServiceNow or Remedy as our "go-to" ticketing product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We selected MCSM because it is a solid product that we could use very quickly, compared to other tools there is a lot more effort for integration into the infrastructure, costing time and money. We implemented the tool very quickly and since it integrates with other Microsoft products, it was very easy to get up and running.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Broadcom
    • Having CA Service Desk Manager within the company has increased the satisfaction of customer service from 68% to 95%. Teams are getting better customer survey scores and making better efforts to meet their SLAs.
    • CA Mobile app has provided agility and collaboration among IT Users and Customers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Save a world of time when imaging
    • Save a world of time with patch management
    • Provides decent reports to get a snapshot quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots