DefinIT Insights

What Is Managed IT for Your Home and Why Do You Need It?

by Robert McNicholas on July 5, 2017

Managed-IT-Home-TechspertsImagine this scenario: you get up in the morning; grab a cup of coffee, and go to log onto your laptop. And you see… the dreaded blue screen of death, signaling something is direly wrong with your PC’s internal workings. The fact is you may not have to imagine this happening, as you have already experienced it.

What’s your next move, aside from flinging down your coffee in despair? Hours on the phone with tech support? A trip to the nearest big-box store to buy a new laptop? Paying major bucks to a laptop repair shop?

It’s times like these when it would be really great to have your own at-home tech support: someone who could come in, fix whatever’s broken, speed up whatever’s slow, and generally make sure your home IT system is up to your needs.Welcome to managed IT for the home.

 

Why Managed IT is Right for Your Home

Managed IT for home-users is much the same as using a managed IT service at work. A managed IT service supplements or replaces an onsite IT team. Usually, managed IT services work for several companies, meaning that they can afford to hire trained IT professionals that specialize in areas like security, network architecture, IT support, and other in-demand skills.

The client companies benefit from the expertise of these pros, without having to pay their full-time salaries. Managed IT for residences gives you access to these same professionals for your home IT needs. While your home IT setup isn’t as complicated or as extensive as your business setup, it’s still pretty complex. And let’s be honest: most people use technology without really understanding how it works. Standard managed IT services cover some or all of the following:

  • Home network configuration, maintenance, and monitoring
  • Home network and computer troubleshooting and repair
  • Internet connectivity troubleshooting (when the problem is client-side, not provider-side)
  • Anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-malware installation and service
  • Virus removal
  • On-call IT support, like having your own IT department
Signing up for managed IT services for your home doesn’t necessarily imply you’ll need access to all of these services, just like taking out an auto insurance policy doesn’t mean your car will get damaged or stolen. But it’s nice to know it’s there if you need it.Another great feature of managed IT is that it adds some stability to your family budget. Instead of having a massive computer repair bill coming at you from out of a clear blue sky, you’ll have a reasonable monthly payment that covers specified services like the ones above.managed-services-jacksonville

Who Needs Managed IT at Home?

Who should consider residential managed IT services? It’s something that can benefit just about anyone who doesn’t have the time, the know-how, or the inclination to troubleshoot networking issues, optimize Internet connections, and fix computer problems. If you work at home and depend on the Internet for business purposes—and according to a study by the Telework Research Network, about 20% of us do, at least some of the time—having a managed IT service to keep your technology up and running is a good investment.Computer problems happen. It’s a fact of life. Having someone else to do the fixing—like a managed IT service—can make a potentially expensive and time-consuming fiasco into a minor inconvenience.  
Topics: Managed Services

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