Vendor goes after SMBs with BSM offering

Startup BSM (business service management) vendor FireScope this week launched
a low-priced product aimed at providing small and medium-size businesses with
easier entry into BSM, where implementations can run into the six figures.

BSM software -- where FireScope competes with BMC, Hewlett-Packard and Managed
Objects -- seeks to provide companies with a way to map the performance of their
IT assets, such as servers and applications, against the day-to-day processes
of a business.

"You can look at the 'health' of all your data-center stuff in relation
to how smoothly, or not, the business is running," said Michael Coté,
an analyst with Redmonk. "The idea there is two-fold: enabling, for lack
of a better word, IT to simply do their job of running all the computers for
the rest of the company, and, giving IT the raw data to justify their existence,
resist budget cuts and ask for more budget."

Pricing for FireScope BSM Business Edition starts at US$2,450.

The product also simplifies the process of implementing BSM, said Mark Lynd,
FireScope's president. "Everything has wizards and contextual information,
step-by-step, how to do this." However, it does not include some key features
found in FireScope's offering for larger enterprises. Among the omissions
are the ability to customize the application's look and feel, multisite data
aggregation, SAN (storage area network) support for Firescope data, real-time
reporting and an advanced analytics package.

"Our goal is to go out there and reach [SMBs] with this, and as these
companies grow, grow with them," Lynd said of the Business Edition, adding
in reference to his competitors, "I don't think the market is ready for
this kind of pricing."

But a representative of one FireScope rival downplayed the potential effect
of such a low-cost offering on the market.

"The idea of providing some BSM functionality to smaller IT shops is noble
and an interesting idea, but I'd recommend being cautious about raising expectations.
... BSM doesn't lend itself to tossing cheap and cheerful code over the wall
and hoping it will self-install and model critical IT services independently,"
said Frank Strong, marketing communications director for Managed Objects, via
e-mail.

IDG News Service

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