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Service-Now Wins 2009 Service Desk Institute Award

Sam — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Service-now.com, the pioneer of modern SaaS for IT service automation, today announced it has been named the winner of the Service Desk Institute 2009 IT Service & Support Technology Supplier of the Year award.

For the first time ever, SDI surveyed end users to determine the IT service management market’s favorite vendors. Service-now.com and three other vendors were selected as finalists for the award based on end-user nominations and feedback.

SDI judges interviewed the four vendor finalists and Service-now.com was selected as the winner of the 2009 IT Service & Support Technology Supplier of the Year award.

“Service-now.com demonstrates a passion for the success of their customers and a commitment to changing the face of the IT service management technology industry,” according to the SDI judges.

The judges also said Service-now.com won the award for:

Embracing and promoting customer enablement
Delivering strong account management and customer community forums
Exceptional customer service
Striving to make every customer a reference

Kevin Kimber, Service-now.com senior account executive, said, “Service-now.com is breaking new ground in the IT service management industry by providing customers with a better application through modern software as a service. Our business model keeps us focused on customer success. We don’t think it was coincidence that the first customer-nominated SDI award was won by a SaaS vendor.”

Service-now.com requested and received a high volume of nominations from its user community. After earning finalist status, Service-now.com demonstrated innovative product development, exemplary business success, a unique delivery model, post-sales customer care, and value for the money among other things.

The SDI Service Desk & IT Support Excellence Awards aim to promote and celebrate every aspect of IT service excellence, professionalism and innovation in the support industry. The prestigious awards were announced during the SDI Annual Conference on June 9 and recognize the outstanding achievements of IT service management teams across Europe.

For more information visit the Service-Now web site.

Top Three Issues For The Service Desk

Sam — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:02:46 +0000

Poor knowledge of customers; pressure to handle increased call volumes, faster, across multiple departments; and managing complexity of change are major headaches for service desk staff today.

The top three issues for today’s service desk have been revealed by Hornbill Systems, a leading provider of service management software with the ‘human touch’. Visitors to Hornbill’s stand at the recent Service Desk & IT Support Show in London were asked to disclose their major challenges in running a successful service desk.

The poll of more than 150 respondents, representing a broad range of organizations in both the commercial and public sector, found that the most significant obstacles to delivering excellent customer service and supporting the overall business or organization are:

Having no or poor knowledge of customers
Managing the complexity of change
The pressure to handle increased call volumes, faster, across multiple departments in different time zones.

Highlights from the poll include:

One third of respondents cited reporting and management information as the crucial problem area. Specifically, poor knowledge of the customer’s history can limit the effectiveness of the interaction between service desk staff and users so diminishing the overall customer experience. In addition, lack of analysis of past incidents often leads to recurring problems with the service desk forced into a reactive rather than a proactive mode. Similarly, difficulty in extracting meaningful, actionable information from the service desk solution prevents staff from reporting on service desk activity against business metrics, and ultimately limits the strategic value that the service desk function can bring to an organization.
One quarter of respondents stated that change management is a challenge. In particular, the increasing number of Configuration Items (CIs) and the rate and complexity of change are exacerbated by having neither a change process nor a repository for storing and managing change data such as a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) in place.
One fifth of respondents claimed that basic incident logging and reporting remain a hurdle. Some service desk managers continue to work in a manual environment where they have no real visibility of incidents or the ability to track incidents across multiple departments. Even in automated environments with sophisticated technology, increased call volumes combined with the pressure to improve response times and first time fix rates with the same number of staff are critical stress factors for service desk managers.

A significant proportion of respondents mentioned the definition and management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) as another challenge, particularly in global organizations where the support of diverse SLAs in different countries, languages and across multiple time zones is crucial to maintaining excellent levels of customer satisfaction.

The issue of globalization re-emerged especially in UK-based companies whose service desk staff work within a traditional 9-5 framework but where the business environment requires them to operate on a 24/7 basis often in small teams and in fire-fighting mode. Lack of resource is further complicated by the fact that many service desk managers claim it is difficult to find the right quality of staff to operate in today’s service desk environment.

Gerry Sweeney, CEO of Hornbill Systems commented: “Our visitors highlighted some interesting priorities: whilst processes and best practice frameworks such as ITIL, and technology designed to help users help themselves like self-service, come relatively low down on their list of issues, being able to capture and share customer information is more important. Getting closer to customers’ needs and wants is pivotal to creating an enhanced customer experience. This is what Hornbill calls the ‘human touch’ – putting customers at the core of everything we do and developing technology that can be used to drive excellence and prevent process stagnation.”

Hornbill has published a research paper, in conjunction with the Service Desk Institute (SDI), entitled “Computer Says No!” which demonstrates that process aligned with the ‘human touch’ is widely regarded as the best way to provide service excellence, and is driving the interaction between the service desk and users. To download a copy of Hornbill’s latest white paper, please go to http://www.hornbill.com

Today’s Service Desk Is at the Core of Corporate IT Service Management Initiatives

Sam — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:02:00 +0000

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today released its latest research report entitled, “The Aging Help Desk: Migrating to a Modern Service Desk.” The study found that the help desk has evolved beyond its role of simply recording and responding to IT user issues.

While that responsibility persists, today’s help/service desk is at the core of IT Service Management (ITSM) including ITIL domains such as asset management, Configuration Management Systems, change management, knowledge management, service catalog and more.

“EMA has long believed that the service desk represents an area of investment for the enterprise,” states Lisa Erickson-Harris, EMA research director and study leader. “Our research confirmed that – even in this down economy – companies view the help/service desk as a place where spending can drive returns through technology automation, the introduction of self-service and consolidation in operations.”

For this study, EMA surveyed 158 IT professionals with help/service desk responsibility and familiarity with their organization’s ITSM initiatives. This quantitative data was complemented by 14 in-depth telephone interviews. The research examined major initiatives taking place in corporate help/service desk operations and explored topics such as best practices, operational metrics, management priorities and integration needs.

Some of the key findings include:

Service Desk Part of Overarching ITSM Strategy: 62 percent of participants are either already making the help/service desk part of the company’s overarching ITSM solution or are planning to move in this direction.
Use of Multiple Help/Service Desk Tools: 56 percent of respondents from large enterprises are managing or planning to manage multiple help desks. The vast majority of organizations managing multiple help/service desks will consolidate their operations.
Consolidating Service Desk with Corporate Customer Service: Integrating customer service operations with the IT service desk promises financial savings as both groups require similar training, toolsets, processes and automation capabilities. 30 percent of respondents have been able to take advantage of this opportunity.
ITIL Disciplines Identified as Important: 64 percent of respondents have deployed or are planning to deploy ITILv3. Incident, problem and change management are the most frequently-deployed ITIL disciplines and remain the most critical for help/service desk operations.
Service Catalog a Key Growth Area: 56 percent of respondents have already deployed or are planning to deploy a service catalog. Clearly, there is value in putting IT service offerings front and center in the hands of managers and users via the service catalog.
Self-Service a Top Priority: Self-service is a strong area of investment because of its ability to lower call volume and resolution time at the service desk. Surprisingly, only 32 percent of respondents indicated that they had already implemented password reset technology while 41 percent are planning to do so.

“While the help/service desk has a lot on its plate,” Erickson-Harris continues. “There are clear opportunities for significant operational cost savings. EMA believes that efforts to expand the footprint of the service desk will also improve the user experience and raise the credibility of IT throughout the organization.”

Erickson-Harris will share additional highlights from the study during a free 45-minute Webinar on April 23. To further support enterprises looking to evolve their help desk into a modern service desk, EMA also offers a free Service Desk/Help Desk Solutions Center that profiles 17 leading products.

The complete research report is available for purchase online at the special price of $395 through May 8, 2009.

Web Help Desk Announces Affordable SaaS and On-Premise Lite Editions

Sam — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:02:00 +0000

For nearly a decade before the buzzwords “SaaS” and “Cloud Computing” entered the mainstream, Web Help Desk has provided the service desk industry with its award winning hosted help desk software. Today, Web Help Desk announced an affordable Lite Edition for small to medium businesses, K-12 schools, collegiate departments and governmental agencies. This new Lite Edition is available as both a hosted SaaS application or for on site installation.

In today’s challenging economic climate, organizations have shifted focus to customer service and retention. Organizations must implement the tools that provide the best ROI, and the availability of the Web Help Desk Lite Edition as a Software as a Service (SaaS) model or On-Premise Server License ensures that an organization of any size and technical infrastructure can provide, track, and report on customer relations and deliver quality customer satisfaction.

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“Organizations demand measurable value in their investments and are seeking alternatives to expensive, heavyweight software packages and hard to maintain in-house solutions” said Web Help Desk, VP, Terry Siddall. “If you currently have a costly solution in place and use only a minority of its functionality, take the time to explore the Web Help Desk Lite Edition. We have achieved a great balance of features and price that can satisfy the needs of most customers and save them money at the same time.”

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Web Help Desk Lite Edition offers a strong feature set, simple implementation, ease of use, email integration, flexibility, scalability, and an unparalleled user interface. This powerful feature set is all backed by an industry leading, knowledgeable technical support team.

Web Help Desk Lite Edition Key Features:

Web Portal – A full customer support web portal for end users to submit service requests, view ticket updates, and seek self help or view auto-suggested solutions from the knowledge base.
Email-to-Ticket Conversion – Automatic email-to-ticket conversion ensures that service requests submitted via email do not fall through the cracks and breach SLA.
Ticket History and Audit Trails – Support staff may add notes (and hidden notes) to each ticket from the web or via email. Every update to a ticket is recorded by username and time date stamp.
Knowledge Base – The customer service Knowledge Base allows both public and private visibility of entries. Building an extensible and searchable knowledge base for internal and external use is easily attainable.
LDAP and Active Directory Integration – Utilize your current LDAP or AD directory for login authentication and to schedule imports of customer data.
SLA Email Alerts and Reminders – Configure various Service Level Agreements for email alerts, escalations and reminders to be sent to support staff.
Graphical Performance Reports – Run a variety of help desk reports to measure productivity and gauge customer satisfaction. Reports may be run real-time, exported to spreadsheets, or through automated email delivery.

SaaS Hosted Licensing

The Web Help Desk’s hosted Lite Edition builds on a near decade long tradition of providing a secure, efficient, high-speed platform at a fraction of the cost of comparable solutions, eliminating the need to maintain a costly server infrastructure. A “try it before you buy it” hosted trial period ensures that an organization’s requirements are met with zero financial investment or risk.

On-Premise Server Licensing:

The Web Help Desk Lite Edition is a cross-platform, vendor neutral server side application that can be installed on any Windows operating system, Mac OS X, Linux, and UNIX. Organizations who maintain solutions in-house can easily deploy the Web Help Desk on existing hardware along side existing applications.

Upgrade Path From Lite to Pro Edition:

As the complexities of your organization and demand to provide enhanced customer service increase, upgrading from Web Help Desk Lite to Pro is a great option. Upgrading is a simple license key change, so there is no need install additional software for on-premise upgrades. SaaS customers can be instantly switched from Lite to Pro as well.

For more details and a free help desk software download, visit the Web Help Desk website http://www.webhelpdesk.com or call +1-510-279-2251.

About Web Help Desk:

Founded in 1998, the Web Help Desk software suite is the leading cross-platform service desk management solution for help desk and customer support professionals who seek to simplify and control their increasingly complex service environments. The extensive feature set of the Web Help Desk software addresses critical IT and support areas, including: Incident and Problem Management, Asset and Desktop Management, Knowledge Management, and Approval Workflow.

Numara Software Receives 2008 Product of the Year Award

Sam — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:02:00 +0000

Numara Software, Inc., a leader in service desk management solutions for IT professionals, announced today that Numara FootPrints 9 has received a 2008 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) Customer Interaction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com), the leading publication covering CRM, call centers and teleservices since 1982.

Numara FootPrints 9 is the latest version of the Numara Software award-winning service desk management solution. The new version features new, expanded support for IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3 service lifecycle best practices and extensive usability enhancements, including Numara FootPrints Mobile – a unique mobile help desk feature giving IT professionals the freedom to access accounts and address issues without being restricted to one location.

The release further demonstrates the company’s ongoing focus on delivering advanced technology to its customers at an affordable price, and helping service organizations deliver a world-class experience to their service customers.

“We’re honored that Numara FootPrints continues to be recognized as one of the most innovative products on the market,” said David Weiss, president and CEO of Numara Software. “Numara FootPrints 9 is an incredibly practical and flexible IT Service Management solution, and receiving this award is a testament to the company’s focus on its customers, and helping them solve their most complex IT service desk needs.”

“I am pleased to honor Numara Software for their hard work and accomplishments. Their commitment to quality and excellence benefit the contact center experience as well as ROI for the companies that use them,” said Nadji Tehrani, executive group publisher and editor-in-chief of Customer Interaction Solutions. “For 11 years, Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has recognized the companies which demonstrate excellence in technological advancement and application refinements.”

The 11th Annual Product of the Year Award winners will be featured in the January 2009 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine.

For more information about the Customer Interaction Solutions’ 2008 Product of the Year Awards or any of the TMC media properties, please visit www.tmcnet.com.

Numara FootPrints 9 is offered in either an on-premise license or hosted. For more information, including a complete list of features or to download a trial version, please visit: www.numarasoftware.com/FootPrints.asp.

About Numara Software

Serving over 50,000 customer sites worldwide, Numara Software is a global leader in providing practical software solutions for service management to IT professionals. From a single technician running a help desk to 1000 technicians managing a complex service desk, IT organizations of all sizes trust our award-winning solutions, featuring Numara Track-It! and Numara FootPrints, to track requests, automate workflows and support internal and external customers.

Unlike other complex, difficult-to-implement, and costly products, we offer robust, affordable and easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly deployed without disruption to your business. Our flexible solutions can be implemented right out of the box or configured to match your unique IT environment and business processes. They can also be leveraged to support non-IT operations, such as human resources and facilities, allowing you to optimize your investments in licensing, maintenance, training, and support.

We’re passionate about helping people successfully manage their IT environments. Find out how we can help you by visiting: www.numarasoftware.com.

Free Help Desk Software Announced by Web Help Desk

Sam — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:01:41 +0000

Web Help Desk, a leading cross-platform help desk software solution, today announced the release of a Free Edition of it’s web-based incident management software for small business, K-12 institutions, and small government organizations. The Free Edition has no trial period or expiration date, is completely free from ads, and includes one full year of help desk software upgrades.

Key benefits of this free help desk software edition include:

Cross-Platform Technology – Server-side installers are available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows Server; while all endusers access the help desk from virtually any Internet browser.
Web Portal – A full customer support web portal for endusers to submit service requests, view ticket updates, and seek self help or view auto-suggested solutions from the knowledge base.
Email-to-Ticket Conversion – Automatic email-to-ticket conversion ensures that service requests submitted via email do not fall through the cracks and breach SLA.
Ticket History and Audit Trails – Support staff may add notes (and hidden notes) to each ticket, from the web app or via email. Every update to a ticket is recorded by username and time date stamp.
Knowledge Base – The mentioned customer service Knowledge Base also allows article visibility to support staff only; building an extensible and searchable internal knowledge base.
LDAP and Active Directory Integration – Utilize your current LDAP or AD directory for login authentication and to schedule imports of customer data.
SLA Email Alerts and Reminders – Configure various Service Level Agreements for email alerts and reminders to be sent to support staff.
Graphical Performance Reports – Run a variety of help desk reports to increase productivity and create new efficiencies. Reports may be run real-time, exported to spreadsheets, or through automated email delivery.

For more details and a free help desk software download, visit the Web Help Desk web site (http://www.webhelpdesk.com/free-help-desk-software.html) or call +1-510-279-2251.

About Web Help Desk:

CA Releases Unified Service Desk Solution

Sam — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:10:37 +0000

At CA World 2008 in Las Vegas CA announced the release of CA Service Desk Manager r12. This release unifies seven typically separate products into one to drive greater value for IT.

CA has announced the planned release of CA Service Desk Manager r12, which is designed to unify into one product what other vendors sell as separate products, including service desk, change management, configuration management database (CMDB), application dependency mapping, knowledge management, support automation, and analytics.

The planned combination of this industry-leading functionality with newly published, standardized best practices is designed to help CA customers more quickly and cost-effectively implement a holistic approach to service management. CA also plans new functionality in CA Service Desk Manager r12, including CA CMDB r12 which is being designed to better manage risk associated with changes to the IT environment.

“The complexity and demand on IT service support requires offerings beyond basic core service desk products, which today tend to require the expense and time to justify purchasing multiple add-on products. For example, while the benefits of knowledge management in reducing downtime and reducing costs through user call defection are well known, full-function knowledge management is typically a separate, extra-cost item,” said Kris Brittain, research vice president, Gartner, Inc. “This piecemeal, multi-product approach to service desks, Gartner believes, is falling out of favor as comprehensive, full-function solutions will become the industry norm.”

“Service management organizations are expanding beyond their tactical roots as trouble ticket centers to become the front office for IT, yet they are often hindered by the industry’s multi-product approach to service management tools,” said Brian Bell, senior vice president and general manager, CA Service Management.

“They need as many as seven more traditionally separate tools to come together so they can automate routine responses to incidents, identify problems and manage change to eliminate incidents, and guide decisions across IT based on how they relate to the services that drive business value. CA is the first major vendor that will provide these seven inter-related capabilities in a single product together with a holistic approach to implementation, maintenance and migration, so our customers can focus more of their time on maturing processes rather than justifying purchases of additional service desk modules.”

New functionality planned for CA Service Desk Manager r12 includes:

Integrated CMDB that is designed to provide more robust support for change management, problem management and compliance. Planned enhancements include improved visualization into change impact and root cause analysis, recording different versions of infrastructure and application elements, and support for the CMDB Federation specification for federation to external data sources including other CMDBs.
Change Management Schedule that is designed to provide visibility of upcoming changes in a calendar view to help assess their potential impact on the environment and minimize risks associated with change.
Role-Based User Interface designed to personalize the user interface with 18 pre-defined, ITIL® v3-aligned roles to accelerate implementation and allow each user to get the information they need to perform their job more efficiently and effectively.
Integrated Business Intelligence powered by Business Objects XI. These reporting capabilities will provide simple drag-and-drop ad-hoc, slice-and-dice reporting to gain intelligence on trends and process performance.
Knowledge management enhancements that are designed to improve customer satisfaction, reduce call volumes and speed time-to-resolution, including forums for socialized information-sharing, powerful search capabilities across multiple content types and repositories, and document versioning with on-line rework and roll back.
Support for Multi-Tenancy which will segregate data, processes and roles allowing IT support organizations to securely service multiple internal or external customers with differentiated service with the cost of a single software tool.
Out-of-the-box integration with other key ITIL and IT service management solutions such as service catalog and asset management.

CA CMDB r12 is currently planned for inclusion as a standard capability of CA Service Desk Manager r12. It also will be available as a standalone product. CA CMDB r12 will provide enhancements that help reduce change and compliance risk, and improve data accuracy and business alignment.

New features planned for CA CMDB r12 include:

New Multi-Level Visualization which is designed to include pre-defined filters that help users quickly see the business service impact and risk of proposed changes. It also helps identify root causes of complex performance and service availability problems.
Federation Capabilities that are designed to provide a complete view of how IT components are configured including hardware, software and physical and virtual servers across mainframe and distributed environments. This will include support for the CMDB Federation (CMDBf) specification which provides a faster, repeatable method for implementing data from other sources, including other CMDBs, as recommended by the ITIL v3 Configuration Management System approach.
Configuration Item (CI) Versioning which is designed to provide baselines for approved CI configurations, historical snapshots of CI configuration changes, and automated comparisons to facilitate compliance reporting and pinpoint root causes of problems caused by planned and unplanned changes.

CA Service Desk Manager r12, a CA Enterprise IT Management solution, is being developed to help organizations drive business value from IT and effectively improve IT economics. CA solutions, such as CA Service Desk Manager r12, are designed to help lower the total cost of ownership of IT by providing faster time-to-value and reducing IT costs through better integration and automation.

For more information visit the CA Service Desk web site.

Numara Launches Numara FootPrints 9 Service Desk Solution

Sam — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:02:41 +0000

Numara Software, Inc., a leading, worldwide provider of practical IT service management software, today announced the release of Numara FootPrints 9, the latest version of its award-winning Numara FootPrints service desk management solution.

Featuring new and expanded support for IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3 service lifecycle best practices and extensive usability enhancements, including powerful new mobile technology, this release further demonstrates the company’s continued focus on delivering advanced functionality to its customers at an affordable price and helping service organizations deliver a world-class experience to their service customers.

“Throughout organizations of all sizes, IT managers are struggling to fully support their business’ complex needs within a constrained budget,” said David Weiss, president and CEO of Numara Software. “That’s why we’re dedicated to helping our customers implement the most practical and flexible IT Service Management solutions available, and the latest release of Numara FootPrints 9 with the new Service Catalog and Mobility solutions along with the Preventive Maintenance module is another example of this dedication.”

“I think the Numara Software approach to the IT service desk is just what mid-market and departments within larger enterprises need,” said Paul Burns, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates. “Numara Software is focused on providing practical and easy-to-use solutions, which is exactly what these markets appreciate. With the latest release of Numara FootPrints, the company has hit on a variety of transforming capabilities, especially the integration of their new Service Catalog with the CMDB.”

Designed for mid-sized to large organizations, Numara FootPrints is a market leader for real-world, practical IT service management, delivering unparalleled value with a highly flexible workflow platform for managing the service desk and other business processes. This new release delivers a range of enhanced and new functionality, including:

ITILv3 for the Real World

Numara FootPrints 9 offers unmatched flexibility and painless implementation whether customers are just beginning to formalize their IT processes or fully embracing ITIL v3 to better align with their business needs.

New Integrated Service Catalog: With Numara FootPrints Service Catalog, service customers can view a catalog of all the services that are provided by the service desk, see detailed information about those services, select the services they want and submit their requests through any web browser. The service catalog lays a foundation for moving into a service-oriented IT model that delivers an amazing customer service experience. Service organizations can now provide a “one-stop-shop” service request experience in an easy-to-use and understandable format.
Comprehensive Change Management: With Numara FootPrints Change Management, organizations will now be able to easily extend the value of change management and approval processes throughout the organization with new support for automated customer and supervisor approvers.
CMDB for Everyone: With more comprehensive functionality, Numara FootPrints Configuration Management (CMDB) can be used across the business and includes asset relationship and visualization enhancements, expanded roles and permissions, and new web services to manage the CMDB externally.
Extensive Knowledge Management: Businesses will improve service desk personnel efficiency and share vital knowledge between different functional areas with improved workflow, auto-searches and reports along with new Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) verification.

World – Class Customer Experience Aligned with the Business

Numara FootPrints 9 provides new and improved ways to help service organizations manage service delivery more effectively, including:

New Service Desk On the Go™: The new Numara FootPrints Mobile, optimized for small-screen use, allows agents to access the service desk using the web browser on their Microsoft® Windows Mobile, RIM® Blackberry®, and Apple® iPhone® devices. Agents can quickly perform critical support functions from wherever they are, such as creating and editing incidents, viewing assignments, performing keyword searches and looking up contacts. Also, agents can easily and automatically synchronize tasks, appointments and contact data.
Proactive Service Management: The new Preventive Maintenance Module prevents downtime and ensures business continuity by enabling service desks to generate automatic schedules and notifications to track recurring service requests on assets, configuration items and processes.

“The biggest benefit that we get from using Numara FootPrints 9 is improved organization and communication,” said Joshua Koch, director of technology, Woodland Joint Unified School District. “It allows us to put the end-user in the driver seat when communicating with our technology department, and better equips us to organize and prioritize our workload. The ITIL best practice framework, along with an easy-to-use web interface, made it easy to implement and customize to our specific needs.”

The practical and flexible design of Numara FootPrints delivers immediate value to customers in its ease-of-use and rapid implementation time to reach productivity, at an extremely low cost of ownership. Unlike other costly and complex products, this highly configurable and scalable solution does not require any programming, deep technical expertise or long consulting engagements.

Numara FootPrints 9 supports ITIL v3 processes and is a certified toolset that has been verified by Pink Elephant through its PinkVERIFY™ Program. Numara FootPrints 9 has been assessed and verified for Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration, Service Catalog and Knowledge Management, along with Request Fulfillment.

Numara FootPrints 9 is available immediately. It is offered in either an on-premise license or hosted. For more information, including a complete list of new features, please visit: www.numarasoftware.com/footprints.asp.

Web Help Desk Integrates With LANrev Client Management Solution

Sam — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:08:10 +0000

MacsDesign Studio LLC, an industry-pioneering provider of the comprehensive IT help desk software, Web Help Desk, today announced integration with LANrev Client Manager, a leading cross-platform client and patch management software suite.

The new integration delivers scheduled imports of asset discovery data from LANrev to the Web Help Desk back-end database and instant access to the LANrev Admin application from within the Web Help Desk browser-based interface.

Automated imports of LANrev’s reliable asset discovery data into the Web Help Desk provide support personnel with up-to-date hardware and software details for the computer identified in the service desk ticket.

If additional software license management analysis is required or software patches need to be deployed, Web Help Desk provides instant, asset-specific accessibility to the the LANrev Admin application.

Web Help Desk’s integration with LANrev Client Manager makes initiating an LANrev desktop control session a simple mouse click away. From within a Web Help Desk ticket or asset search, support professionals can instantly access all of LANrev’s features and benefits.

“Even in today’s uncertain economic climate, service desk requests, software compliance issues, and patch management are business realities that will not falter and must be addressed,” said MacsDesign VP, Terry Siddall. “However, by utilizing integrated solutions like Web Help Desk and LANrev that are intuitive, simple to deploy, and provide a heightened and measurable ROI, businesses are able to address these issues while providing demonstrable value back to the
organization.”

About MacsDesign Studio:

Founded in 1998, MacsDesign Studio LLC is a global provider of the Web Help Desk software suite, the leading cross-platform service desk management solution for help desk and customer support professionals who seek to simplify and control their increasingly complex service environments. The extensive feature set of the Web Help Desk software addresses critical IT and support areas, including: Incident and Problem Management, Asset and Desktop Management, Knowledge Management, and Approval Workflow.

For more information on the Web Help Desk software suite, visit the Web Help Desk website or call +1-510-279-2251.

About LANrev LP:

LANrev LP is the leading provider of PC and Mac lifecycle management solutions for enterprise IT environments. LANrev’s ease of deployment and powerful management tools help enterprises across the globe save time and money while increasing efficiency. LANrev is a founding member of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance and an Energy Star partner.

For more information please visit the LANrev website or call +1-214-459-0136.

Service-now.com Now Safe Harbor Certified

Sam — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:21:49 +0000

Service-now.com, the pioneer of on-demand IT service management, today announced certification by the U.S. Department of Commerce with the United States-European Union (EU) Safe Harbor Framework. The Safe Harbor Framework facilitates secure, uninterrupted data transfers from the EU to the United States.

“As a software-as-a-service vendor, our customers trust us to keep their IT service management running and their data safe,” said Fred Luddy, Service-now.com CEO. “While we already employ several layers of security in our technology, including secure data transmission protocols and SAS-70 Type II certified data centers, this Safe Harbor certification underscores our commitment to the security of our customers’ data around the world.”

The European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection prohibits the transfer of personal data to countries outside of the European Economic Area to nations that do not meet the EU standard for privacy protection. Approved by the EU in 2000, Safe Harbor provides a streamlined means for US organizations to comply with EU data standards for protecting personal data privacy and improve service to their clients in the EU.

Almost 25 percent of the Service-now.com customer base is headquartered in Europe and Service-now.com is demonstrating commitment to data privacy by certifying with the Safe Harbor Framework. As the program has grown, it has achieved global recognition as one of the best ways to meet the requirements of the EU’s Data Protection Directive. For more information, visit the Safe Harbor website.

About Service-now.com

Service-now.com is the pioneer of on-demand IT service management software. Service-now.com integrates ITIL v3 processes, software-as-a-service delivery, and Web 2.0 functionality to deliver a flexible, intuitive and self-managing application. Service-now.com was founded by Fred Luddy, former CTO of Peregrine Systems and Remedy. The company is based in Solana Beach, Calif. and has more than 200 customers worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.service-now.com/.