Atlassian has acquired Halp, a real-time helpdesk tool that integrates with Slack. With the broader context of this move being Atlassian and Slack’s strategic alliance, might there be more to this acquisition than meets the eye?

Organizations are complex and have multiple stakeholders involved in the delivery of a service. In a public sector organization, for example, there are end users, multiple agencies and departments, and vendors involved in the delivery and consumption of the service. Service design methods and tools assist in making sense of these stakeholders’ inter-relationships and allow organizations to make sound decisions during service implementation.

The impact of COVID-19, as it became a global pandemic in Q1 of 2020, has affected user sentiment toward software during a growing period of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. To analyze the impact, SoftwareReviews compared Satisfaction (willingness to recommend to a peer), ability to deliver Business Value (fair cost to value), and Likeliness to Renew prior to March 10 and post March 10.

ITSM vendor InvGate announced that due to COVID-19 any organization can use InvGate Service Desk free of charge. This promotion helps IT departments when they need it most while gaining adoption and market traction for InvGate.

ServiceNow’s Orlando release introduced Now Intelligence, a set of features that strengthen ServiceNow’s lead in the AI-powered IT service management (ITSM) and digital transformation space.

Ivanti is well positioned to build on a solid ITSM foundation and will deliver expanded capability in areas such as mobility, customer experience, enterprise service management, and artificial intelligence.

IT solutions provider BMC announced that Shared Services Canada (SSC) has selected BMC Remedy to be its new ITSM platform. This adoption shows that BMC continues to be a viable option for governments and large enterprises.

ServiceNow has released four free emergency response apps to help customers with crisis management in the wake of COVID-19, including emergence response operations, employee outreach, self-reporting, and exposure management.

ManageEngine has released version 10.5 of ServiceDesk Plus MSP, with a new UI and new features including MSP Business Dashboard, Time Sheet, and field service management.

ServiceNow promises to make in-house ServiceNow development a little easier by directly integrating with Microsoft’s popular Visual Studio Code editor.

At a smart city forum hosted in Dublin by Enterprise Ireland, practitioners from around the world discussed some of the early successes yielded from pilot projects and the barriers they still face in scaling up.

Serviceaide announced that it has added new AI features to its Intelligent Service Management (ISM) to improve incident resolution time and overall service desk efficiency.

Microsoft announced a new service for managing the hardware and software required to run meetings in Microsoft Teams and Skype. This new solution is a cloud-based service to provide Microsoft Teams meeting rooms with more security and efficient monitoring.

Symphony SummitAI announced the general availability of Sierra, the latest version of its AI-based service management tool.

Clearlake Capital is shaking up Ivanti’s leadership. Expect greater focus on efficiency and acquisitions beyond ITSM and IT operations.

ServiceNow version New York has entered General Availability. These features should delight high-maturity IT departments but are mostly worthless for low-maturity groups.

Cherwell has announced it is consolidating its portfolio of modules into a single product at its Clear conference in Nashville this fall. Its promise of an elevated experience is achievable, but customers need to do some work to make it a reality.

Micro Focus announced that its Service Management Automation X (SMAX) product has grown its customer count by 133% over the past year and can now be deployed as SaaS in addition to cloud or on-premises solutions.

IT solutions provider BMC announced its intelligence-enriched ITSM and ITOM platform with BMC Helix, which supports efficient and proactive IT service discovery, monitoring, optimization, remediation, and delivery of an omni-channel experience for IT professionals and businesses.

Atlassian announced that its service desk software, Jira Service Desk, now includes templates and workflows to support non-IT business units including HR, Legal, and Facilities.

VMware challenges IT to be more than it may be comfortable with: technologists as members of an elite caste charged with the moral use of technology and guarding the uninitiated against negative consequences.