This leads to several observations:

1. ITSM is undergoing a generational revolution.  First gen systems from Remedy, Peregrine (now HP), CA and others are at the bitter end of their duty cycles.  Customers in this most mature of IT management markets are actively looking for something new.
2. First gen cloud-based ITSM systems aren’t cutting the mustard.  I spoke with more than a few SaaS ITSM pioneers who are stymied by inflexibility, lack of upgradability and poor response time.  Wow.  Weren’t those problems supposed to be left behind with the ERP-like systems of the past?
3. ITSM and Release Management go together like sugar and spice.  The Innovation Award judges were clearly taken with the novelty of how Serena Service Manager and Serena Release Manager both bridged the DevOps divide and provided a new level of service responsiveness.
4. Serena was so right to accept our customers’ invitation to provide an ITSM solution.  Many had made great progress with their ITIL initiatives using Serena Business Manager alone, but figured that an off-the-shelf, Pink-certified solution from Serena that incorporated a highly effective CMDB would help them go to the next level.  Thank you for pushing!
5. Pink Elephant runs a great conference.  Educated, passionate attendees streamed to our booth, each one bubbling about what they were getting out of the sessions they’d attended.  We vendors also felt appreciated.  Thank you David and George.

Want to see the 1 minute video we submitted along with the Serena highlight of the award ceremony?  Click here.