Managed Support Services: A New Model of Hardware and Software Support Emerges

This IDC study describes the current models of support service provisioning. Organizations of all different sizes face the day-to-day challenges associated with operating and maintaining their infrastructure and applications. Many of these organizations will use external providers for support, to varying degrees. According to IDC Software and Hardware Support Services research, approximately 74% of organizations use some degree of external assistance to manage their IT operations and therefore obtain software and hardware support services from an outside vendor.

The most recently adopted models of support, in particular the management model and outsourcing, are giving customers new options for supporting infrastructure and applications. However, full outsourcing is not for every company.

"The management model of support was designed to increase efficiencies by consolidating the number of contracts and vendors organizations manage and implementing documented support services management procedures," said Christine Tenneson, program manager for IDC's Software and Hardware Support Services research.