IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

IBM and OpenText are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and OpenText Service Manager [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

October 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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Klemen Muhvič

Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.

Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team

What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.

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MEKKAB Raouf

Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy

Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities

We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The thing I appreciate most about Automation Anywhere is how integrated the aspects of it are."

"IQ Bot is very helpful as it is easy to learn and implement and the data output accuracy is almost 90%."

"All the data that comes in has to be QC'd, and Automation Anywhere helps us by automating the QC part."

"AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point."

"Automation Anywhere has been a boon for our organization because the tedious task that used to be hectic and made us remain seated for hours is now done with a single click."

"When it comes to financials, Automation Anywhere has done amazing work in ensuring not only the speed and accuracy of the bot, but also the compliance and error controls through which the bot executes the job at very high satisfaction and tolerance levels."

"Automation Anywhere has very strong game because it is always up for asking feedback."

"Automation Anywhere is the first RPA solution we have taken and suggested implementing it to our customers, and it has helped tremendously in assisting our customers in achieving their goals."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"In general, it's been pretty stable."

"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"It is a rich content solution and a good and complete solution, along with a lot of functionality."

"I advise others to use the HP Service Manager because it's a powerful and capable enterprise solution."

"Its flexibility and ease of customization are its most valuable features."

"We improved our service levels and have been able to maintain them for the last four and a half years."

"Stability, lower operation costs, and straight process implementation."

"One of the big benefits that’s come out of this is a centralized view of all IT operations that really enable us to shift resources (people and money) in a real-time way to accomplish whatever we need."

"The solution will streamline productivity and also improve automation, bringing efficiency as well as the ability to handle a big number of enterprise-wide service needs, with productivity and collaborative capabilities being some of the key benefits."

"It's the point of control for managing issues and offers control in the implementation of the changes."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] pros

Cons

"Automation with bots runs fine only if it is an attended bot. With unattended bots, the bots run only 25 to 30 percent of the time."

"Automation Anywhere is easy to use, even if you lack technical skills. People without deep technical expertise can easily develop scenarios."

"Setting up Automation Anywhere is a bit complex."

"Attended automation sometimes might go into exceptions, thus we need to monitor it in-between, then check whether it is working properly. This way, we ensure the bot is working properly."

"Automation Anywhere's UI is difficult. Its user interface can be improved."

"I am looking for artificial intelligence and machine learning. I hope that they introduce them in A2019."

"There can be some options to connect to the database directly where we should be able to add some data."

"There is definitely some room for improvement there. It is sort of a hit and miss with their support engineers, you have some really good ones and some that aren't."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"The user interface is not very interesting."

"Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"Service Manager is at the end of its life. The architecture, performance, and look are all way behind."

"Life cycle management is a drama."

"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."

"Part of our reason for moving away from Service Manager is that HP was not on the leading edge of the technology and was consequently being surpassed by SaaS offerings."

"It's not so easy to move to the next version. It's not quick to upgrade."

"The user interface is very clunky. It's only now beginning to be a web-based interface, but for now it's still very clunky."

"With the new version moving toward the codeless configuration is good, but it's losing flexibility."

"Stability was always an issue until we did a full load and performance test, since then this is in good shape."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, it's not at all cheap, and that's a concern. The licensing cost is very high. While I don't know the exact prices of other tools, Microsoft offers the lowest pricing for its RPA platform compared to UiPath and Automation Anywhere."

"We generally follow the Gain-Sharing Pricing model, which enables the customer to start getting the RPA benefits right from day one of their implementation."

"Pricing is a bit high when compared to other available tools; however, the tool is worth the cost."

"The current pricing for Automation Anywhere seems a little higher compared to competitors Power Automate or UiPath. Automation Anywhere is perceived as pricey due to the support model charges ranging from 20% to 30% based on the plans."

"They have a ridiculously expensive bot licensing structure, especially for the Asian region."

"We save 34,000 hours of time per year and have recouped up to $6000 in lost revenue."

"Annual licensing costs would be about $100,000."

"I advise others that even as of right now, the setup cost and licensing cost to automate bots on Automation Anywhere is steep but it is worth the investment!"

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"The license is not cheap."

"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."

"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."

"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."

"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Performing Arts

11%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	162
Midsize Enterprise	86
Large Enterprise	565

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

See all answers

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

See all answers

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

See all answers

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

Appian vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

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JIRA Service Management vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 14% of the time

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 13% of the time

Ameyo Fusion CX vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 9% of the time

Ivanti ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 7% of the time

SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

ServiceNow vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

Clarity SM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

Zendesk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 2% of the time

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

November 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

October 2026

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

October 2026

Download OpenText Service Manager [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

SmartCloud Control Desk

Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

IBM

Demo not available

OpenText

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust integration capabilities, effective SLA integrations, automated workflows, and comprehensive reporting. Its flexibility and centralized request management enhance service efficiency, making it ideal for detailed issue tracking and resolution in IT environments.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is designed to streamline IT support, ticketing, and incident management. By integrating seamlessly with existing infrastructures, it centralizes service requests and IT asset management. Its automated processes ensure efficiency from initiation to resolution, reducing the chances of oversight. The platform's adaptability supports both on-premises and cloud deployments, making it suitable for industries like telecommunications and IT services. However, users often face challenges with support responsiveness, outdated interfaces, and difficulties with email integration, particularly affecting images and attachments.

What Are the Key Features of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk?

Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with various systems to enhance functionality.
SLA Integrations: Strong service level agreement management ensures SLAs are met.
Automated Workflow: Full automation of processes from start to resolution.
Robust Reporting: Comprehensive reporting tools for detailed insights.
Request Management: Centralized management of service requests and IT assets.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Seek?

Efficiency: Streamlines operations with automated processes, increasing productivity.
Flexibility: Adapts to organizational changes for better service delivery.
Reliability: Backed by IBM's trusted brand reputation.
Scalability: Scales with demand for growing businesses.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is widely implemented in telecommunications and IT services industries. Organizations utilize it for managing IT support, incident resolution, and system monitoring. Its ability to handle both internal and external requests effectively helps businesses streamline client communications and improve service management across different deployment models.

IBM

Service Manager on SaaS provides you with a cloud-based, industry leading IT Service Management solution.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

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Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: October 2026.

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