BMC Says MyIT Will Simplify IT Support

Services management company BMC has launched a self-service IT support app, MyIT, which will, it promised, make enterprise IT as easy to use as consumer tech.

The MyIT service is going to seize the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement and help users interact more pro-actively with their IT support departments, while taking the load off support desks by understanding root problems underlying given issues, BMC claimed. The service, based partly on recent acquisition Coradiant, will be available as a cloud app and as installed software.

The company would not be drawn on rumours it is up for sale. Reports have suggested BMC is being pressured by its investment backers to sell itself, but nothing is being said in public by the company.

Making business IT easier

“Enterprise users cannot any longer understand why it is easier to get information at home than when they are working in the enterprise,” said BMC’s EMEA CTO Eric Blum, echoing an oft-heard lament.

Users are bringing in their own devices, and expect to be able to use business software just as smoothly as the technology they use at home, but these increased expectations, and the demands of multiple devices, are overwhelming IT departments.

Those departments are trying  to stem the tide of BYOD, and stop the arrival of newer technologies, but users are complaining, saying “You guys are preventing us from being productive,” according to Blum.

MyIT apparently monitors user activity and correlates it with  GPS, as well as by roles and responsibilities to get the right response, said Blum: “It can either set up an appointment with the people who have the right experience to support that problem, or can export information to you.”

For example, if a user brings an iPad to work and then goes to a different floor in the office, they might find they can’t print there. MyIT would quickly spot that’s what they were trying to do, and find out whether there was in fact a fault with that printer.

The software is a mini app, which users install, and works with whatever call centre the company has, as well as service desk software from BMC or other vendors, Blum assured TechWeekEurope.

The product will be on general release early in 2013, but is already being used in certain customer environments. It will be licensed per user – but Blum could not say how high the price would be.

“Depending what you have in the back end, the price can be very different,” he said, and the price would also vary depending on whether the customer takes the on-premises version of the cloud-based SaaS (software-as-a-service) option.

One thing Blum emphasised is that the licence will be per user, not per device: “The average number of devices is now 2.1 to 2.2, and we see  that growing,” he said. “We don’t want to limit customers’ opportunity to accelerate that move and increase productivity.”

Widespread rumours say that BMC is up for sale. Its 34 percent market share in IT systems management could give it a big valuation, of around $6.9 billion (£4.3 billion). This is believed to be partly at the behest of hedge fund Elliott Associates, which bought 7.7 percent of BMC earlier this year.

Elliott also tried to buy once-mighty network firm Novell, in 2010, but eventually that firm was sold to Attachmate.

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