Service management is one of the most active technology areas at the moment, with even the government eyeing this sector.
This is according to Nick Perkins, country manager for FrontRange Solutions, an infrastructure management company.
Perkins says upon coming out of the recession, FrontRange will look to acquire companies in 2010. “All of our acquisitions made this year will be geared to bolster future service management services.
“For us, this year is about looking to expand our client base with new technologies and increased customer adoption. Automation is going to be our core focus for 2010.”
Perkins adds: “FrontRange Solutions is driving its major product releases now; which includes Heat version 9 help-desk solution. Our latest software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering will be released later this year. We've spent the last year working on developing service management releases that will be SaaS-enabled.”
Driving ITIL
Perkins claims that Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) will play a bigger role this year. ITIL is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management, and provides a set of best practices drawn from the public and private sectors internationally.
“In the past five years, service management and ITlL have been buzzwords, and there's been a sharp improvement in market maturity in the understanding of ITIL, and the benefits of implementing service management solutions.”
However, Perkins notes that SA lags behind Europe in terms of service management and ITIL.
“I think South Africans are naturally more conservative than their European counterparts in the approach they take in implementing SaaS solutions,” he explains. “Europe is certainly seeing quicker sales cycles and South Africans tend to put in a lot more time and effort to understand what they are going to get from the solutions.”
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