BMC Software Inc. this week unveiled additional features in its Magic Service Desk Suite that the company says will help make it easier for customers to install the product as well as to generate reports on the data the software collects.

Magic 8.0, part of BMC"s Remedy IT Service Management Solution, is targeted at small and midsize businesses and is considered by BMC to be complementary to the company"s large enterprise-focused Remedy service management software.

Magic 8.0 includes more reporting capabilities and a feature dubbed, QuickViews, which allows IT administrators to customize their view to they way they prefer. For example, service desk staff could base their view on the ticket?s priority, the department generating the ticket or the status of service requests. The latest version includes 22 reports for managers to track the progress of the service desk. A new install and configuration wizard will also make getting the product up and running easier for small IT shops, BMC says.

"There are distinct requirements for enterprise and mid-market customers," says Mitchell Myers, Magic Solutions director of product management. "We significantly improved our user interface and the usability of our product for IT shops with less expertise available for first responses to service desk help."

Magic installs on a Windows server, and users can access the product via the Web. The software accepts service tickets from a variety of sources. For example, end users could complete a self-service interface over the Web to get their service request processed by Magic 8.0. Or the software can be configured to accept e-mail requests sent to IT support staff and automatically populate the product with the service tickets.

Magic Service Desk Suite 8.0 competes most with FrontRange?s Heat products. Magic 8.0 stand-alone service desk software costs about US$3,750 per seat. Pricing for the Magic Service Desk Suite 8.0 starts at $5,000 per seat.