I'm using Entuity, and using BMC Operations Management to manage events is a must. Assign, acknowledging, close events, send notifications, and use REST API for external/internal connectors is a big plus! However, I'll not recommend it for small companies, due to the infrastructure and the huge amount of features it has.
The SMP solution is a beast. Each piece is complicated in itself let alone how everything ties together!
There is plenty of documentation online on how to perform a specific task, but you need to pay attention to what VERSION the article is written for. I've been halfway through implementing something only to hit a roadblock since I'm running a newer version and the option the article says to click on doesn't exist anymore...
I have had exposure to SCCM before we moved to Altiris (aka SMP) and SMP does some things in a more complicated way, but there is a LOT of flexibility too. For example, with Patch Management, it's very similar to SCCM, you download the patches you want to install and then publish them. However, with SCCM, you need to have WSUS running on the back end to handle the patch deployment, while SMP does the installs itself. It syncs the patches with the agents and stages the files, and will install them when the maintenance window opens.
We have done extensive comparisons between the products and some where quickly eliminated for lacking functionality or support for key technologies. The features that really pushed TrueSight to the top over other full suites from CA, ScienceLogic, SolarWinds, HP, Foglight and IBM was a mix of deal-breaking gaps for us in areas including support of iSeries, QoS reporting, integration options to other platforms and advanced analytics with event management
Being able to report on the majority of things you want all from one interface, makes it really easy to get the results you want.
Because my employer didn't provide training, it took working with support, reading technical documentation, and just playing around on my own to learn how to do certain things.
I've had a lot of help from the SMP Support staff and they're great people and very helpful!