Key Takeaways: The Forrester New Wave for End-User Experience Management, Q4 2020

Technology advisory firm Forrester Research recently released the Forrester New Wave for End-User Experience Management, Q4 2020. The report features a research methodology that evaluates vendors with telemetry collected through an endpoint agent, end-user experience management (EUEM) market experience, and general availability as of August 1st, 2020. Forrester defines EUEM as “an emerging market that focuses on improving employee technology experience, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.”

In their 10-criteria evaluation of end-user experience management tools, Forrester researchers Andrew Hewitt, Stephanie Balaouras, Shannon Fish, and Diane Lynch identified the 11 providers whom they consider most significant in the category: 1E, Aternity, Catchpoint, Lakeside Software, LiquidWare, NetMotion, Nexthink, Tanium, ThousandEyes, vast limits, and VMware – then researched, analyzed, and scored them. The Wave report details their findings and examines how each vendor meets (or falls short of) Forrester’s evaluation criteria and where vendors stand in relation to each other. At Solutions Review, we read the report, available here, and pulled out the key takeaways.

Two vendors, Nexthink and Lakeside Software, dominated the Leaders section of the Wave for different reasons. Nexthink leads the pack with holistic experience management and works best for companies with a dedicated digital experience staff. However, Forrester noted that the vendor needs better out-of-the-box integrations with third-party software. Lakeside Software collects a large amount of telemetry data and is a great fit for VDI environments. Customers complained about Lakeside Software’s console, though, and Forrester recommended the vendor revamp its dashboard.

Of the four Strong Performers of the report, Aternity excels at providing application experience in addition to device and network-centric monitoring, though it needs additions to its built-in remediation capabilities. Catchpoint offers multiple vantage points for measuring experience and works best for cloud-focused companies but lacks in providing user experience data at the device level. VMware’s EUEM solution isn’t fully mature yet but the vendor has a strong understanding of technology experience and providers benefits to users already familiar with VMware Workspace ONE. 1E delivers full-fledged device experience management and has direct in-product integration with ServiceNow, but the vendor lacks visibility into cloud environments and other services.

NetMotion, one of the three Contenders, lacks some critical experience management capabilities but excels at mobile use cases. Tanium specializes in remediation and best helps companies who want to unify ITOps and security, though Forrester criticized its limited expansion beyond its traditional areas of expertise. By contrast, ThousandEyes doesn’t offer remediation but distinguishes itself in the EUEM market with its root-cause analysis dashboards. Finally, the two Challengers, Liquidware and vast limits, both perform well in VDI environments; however, Liquidware lacks qualitative feedback and scripted remediation features and vast limits focuses more on monitoring user experience rather than managing it.

Read the Forrester New Wave for End-User Experience Management, Q4 2020 here.

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