Hi All

Just a quick speculative email to drum up a general feeling about IT support.

My question proposed is this, how useful would any of the following services be to small/medium sized business, taking into consideration IT budgets.

* Remote IT Support

This could provide any of the following services:
- Remote error fixing (quickly and more cost-effectively due to no call-out charges/waiting)
- Remote installation of software
- Remote Security management (inc. hardware configuration, firewalls, policies etc)
- Phone/email support where required
- On-site support when required

* Software training
- Training on any Microsoft related product (via training offices and/or e-learning website)

* Hardware Support
- Customised system building
- Networking installation/security/consultancy

* Website Production
- Website creation
- Website promotion/marketing

* Customised software development
- Internet application development or standalone software


So, how useful would it be to have a company that provides primarily a support based service, with the additional options of being able to call upon other services when or if required.

What kind of budget do smaller companies have for these kind of things? Is support a common problem and would it be more cost-effective to have a third-party deal with the common problems remotely?