2 min read
In the spotlight today: Jira Service Management vs. BMC Helix ITSM (formerly Remedy) – both ITSM heavyweights. Can JSM, as a young "rookie," compete against one of the oldest contenders in the ITSM business? Let’s find out!
Incident Management
Let's dive straight into the heart of classic IT Service Management: Incident Management is all about getting a service or system back up and running as quickly as possible. As a well-established solution, BMC has everything needed to assign tickets, discuss the issue with other staff, and escalate if necessary.
Jira Service Management (JSM) can do all of this too. Moreover, the most valuable aspect of JSM becomes clear here – its integration with Jira (Jira Software and Jira Work Management have been unified as Jira, more on that here: A New Jira). If your development team is already working with Jira, they can connect it directly with Jira Service Management. This means you can link JSM tickets with development issues from Jira or prioritise requests. It also means that developers can view comments and provide immediate feedback when incidents need to be escalated, for example. All of this ensures seamless, efficient, and secure incident management.
Artificial Intelligence
Naturally, both solutions are equipped with AI. Here, we rely on the providers' statements. BMC uses AI to gain new insights, manage complexity and risks, and build organisational knowledge.
On the other hand, JSM leverages Atlassian Intelligence for natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, providing personalised searches or recommendations for individuals or teams, opening up new possible ways of collaboration. The pattern recognition in work history continues to help optimise processes and outcomes, thereby enhancing efficiency.
Both solutions offer their unique functionalities regarding artificial intelligence and thus require careful consideration and analysis of requirements.
Connectivity and ecosystem
BMC is a comprehensive software suite of ITSM tools with tight integration with other BMC tools and integrated IT Asset Management (ITAM). The product is popular with global brands and is offered in an on-premise and SaaS configuration.
In contrast, JSM is part of the Atlassian ecosystem. There is a strong global community and a highly extensive marketplace with over 5,000 apps. But the greatest strength, as mentioned, is the collaborative lifecycle consisting of development, services, and IT—here, JSM runs in conjunction with Jira and offers a coherent experience. Therefore, there is only one ticketing system where all tickets converge.
Pricing and Cost structure
We generally like Atlassian products' transparent pricing, which is one of the most important questions for companies and decision-makers. Jira Service Management offers clear and easily understandable prices that are available online. With BMC, these are only available upon request.
Furthermore, "Premium Consulting/Integration Services" can be purchased with JSM – so you are not forced to buy these services as a package in advance, allowing you to reduce costs further. This is probably also why Gartner, in their "Magic Quadrant for ITSM" (where leading ITSM providers are compared), came to the following conclusion: "With those additions, BMC Helix ITSM has one of the highest combined list licence costs of all the offerings from vendors evaluated in this Magic Quadrant." Thus, with JSM, you get exactly what you pay for, while with BMC, you might end up buying a bit more.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a central platform that unites business, development, and IT goals with integrated and robust asset management and offers clear cost evaluation, JSM is the way to go.
