CA has today announced three service management products designed to offer a unified approach to IT management.

CA Service Desk Manager, CA IT Client Manager and CA IT Asset Manager combine separate management capabilities into three new unified products. The products were unveiled at the CA World 2008 user event in Las Vegas.

Service Desk Manager incorporates service desk, configuration management database (CMDB) and change management features into one product, while release 12 of the product will also add features to help firms better manage risk around IT change.

IT Client Manager is aimed at automating the process of managing devices such as desktops and laptops, and includes inventory, tracking and patch management, while IT Asset Manager integrates software licensing and financial management.

Brian Bell, general manager for service management at CA, said that there had been a proliferation of tools aimed at solving firms' service management issues.

He cited three "pain areas" created by the raft of disparate tools: making it more difficult to purchase products; putting a greater integration burden on customers; and a higher cost of training and driving user adoption.

As a result, CA has released its service management products as unified offerings to let firms purchase one piece of software under one licence, which other vendors would offer as separate products.

"There's a business motivation for CA," Bell said. "We believe customers want a more holistic approach."

René Millman, senior research analyst at Gartner, said that the CA Service Desk Manager was the interesting part of the announcement, as it incorporates CMDB capabilities.

"These suites often bring efficiencies, but it depends how well integrated they are," he added. "We've seen suites before that claim to be integrated but aren't; if it's properly integrated it will bring real benefits."