Even if your Richmond small business has a regular freelance support technician or employs a full time IT staff that can deal with the majority of network issues, Progent’s Microsoft and Cisco certified engineers provide an easy and transparent virtual extension of your on-site resources for situations when your usual service personnel either don't have the availability or the expertise to resolve sudden network crises or especially tough integration projects.

Details of Progent's Remote Network Support for Richmond
Progent's online help, remote repair, network security consulting, and system administration services give small offices in Richmond or anywhere in the state of Virginia the greatest leverage for your IT budget. Whether you require one-time phone help and remote network repair or full-time Help Desk Call Center services and network administration, Progent's professionals can provide your small business enterprise-level network support while permitting you to eliminate the cost and hassle of maintaining a full-service internal IT organization. Highlights of Progent's online help program include:

• Immediate Phone Access to Microsoft Certified Support Specialists
  Progent's staff of Microsoft-certified technicians can provide fast and economical expertise to small businesses in Richmond and is also ideal for networks in more remote regions of Virginia that lack consultants with proven experience supporting Microsoft's latest family of server platforms. All Progent engineers have over 10 years of experience integrating Microsoft products. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner support firm, Progent has access to a wide range of Microsoft support utilities, service databases, and on-going education.

• By the Minute Rates to Reduce Costs
  Progent provides online help on a minute-by-minute billing plan, so you pay only for the support you receive. Progent requires no minimum fee for phone help and imposes no periodic subscription fee. This keeps you from paying big bills for routine repairs.

• Availability of Cisco Network Infrastructure Specialists
  As a Certified Partner for Cisco Systems, Progent offers the services of authorized professionals who have experience in designing, deploying, and troubleshooting networking solutions based on Cisco technology. Progent can offer a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or Cisco Certified Network Professional to help you create fast, high-availability, and secure connectivity for wireline and wireless networking.

• Application Experts Team
  Progent's basic consulting offerings consist of system integration, Microsoft Exchange consulting, corporate security planning, and Help Desk outsourcing services. Progent's Experts group offers world-class consulting support in specific business applications. Help available from the Application Experts Team covers:
  • Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains Consulting and Customization
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Consulting
  • MS Project Training
  • MS Excel Consulting
  • MS Office Consulting
  • Crystal Reports, MS Access, and FRx Consulting
  • UNIX, Linux and Sun Solaris Support
  • Apple Macintosh Help
  By offering a convenient centralized source for network generalists and application experts, Progent is able to tailor fast, affordable, and comprehensive IT solutions that match the special needs of your business.

• Advanced Remote Connectivity Tools
  Secure online connectivity permits Progent's service professionals to see precisely what your customers see. This makes it possible to find quick solutions to problems that might otherwise demand an expensive personal service call. Effective remote access software and experienced technicians combine to enable Progent to repair most IT issues quickly and economically. Progent is a pioneer in offsite support and automated network analysis.

• Support for Leading VPN Gateways
  Progent supports safe VPN access for gateways from leading VPN vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco, Watchguard and Checkpoint. Protected VPN remote access allows the engineers at Progent's Technical Response Center to access your system remotely without compromising network security.

• 24-hour Service for High System Availability
  For small businesses with mission-critical applications, Progent offers round-the-clock online technical services. Combined with automated 24x7 server monitoring based on Microsoft Operations Manager, this service can help ensure maximum system availability.

• Help Desk Services
  Progent's Help Desk support programs are designed especially for budget-constrained small companies whose clients require instant recourse to a Help Desk service with expert telephone support and complete escalation capability.

Advantages of Progent's Network Help for Small Companies in Richmond
Progent's remote technical help services allow your City# small company to experience the advantages of immediate, enterprise-class network support without the expense of managing a full-time IT staff. Your information system will acquire greater strategic value by becoming increasingly available, efficient, and protected. Benefits to your company include:

• Convenient remote expansion of your local support resources
  For most small businesses in Richmond and throughout Virginia, nearby network support resources, whether represented by outside consultants or an in-house IT staff, can solve the majority of technical problems. However, major troubles can strike when local support personnel are too busy or unavailable, and some trouble may involve IT products that is beyond the scope of your onsite service personnel. In these instances, Progent's on-call service specialists give you a convenient, fast, and affordable solution to supplement your local resources and to transfer useful information to increase your capability to deal with future issues locally.

• Reduced Dependence on Individual Service Providers
  For IT support, small businesses often depend on independent freelance consultants. Although independent consultants have less internal costs than big support organizations and can afford to charge marginally less, they are occasionally overextended, making it difficult to respond quickly to crisis situations. If a freelance consultant is busy with another client, ill, on vacation, or in class, the lack of fallback personnel may require your company to wait for assistance during an IT crisis. As your small business grows, system unavailability and problems with vital software become more costly. The money you thought you were saving on an independent can be eaten up fast by lost productivity. Progent provides a ready source of backup service expertise to make sure your IT system remains available.

• Build a Solid Basis for Smooth Expansion
  Small businesses often start with an IT architecture implemented on a shoestring budget. Lacking a robust framework, band-aid fixes can get thrown onto an unstable foundation. As a company grows, reliability and expandability problems can hinder the success of the organization. These poorly built environments need proper assessment, smart long-term planning, and wide technical knowledge to evolve to a system architecture able to provide the solid foundation to meet current business requirements and ease downstream growth.

• Interact with Solution Providers Rather Than Technology Resellers
  Small offices need advice and technical education to negotiate an increasingly complex array of technology alternatives capable of accelerating business growth and enhancing productivity. These companies hardly need a computer engineer who is attempting to earn a commission on a specific vendor's products. Network consulting and product selling can lead to a situation where the recommended solution is designed around a profitable technology instead of the true requirements of a client. Progent eliminates these dilemmas by offering just services rather than products. This enables Progent to align IT consulting with the best needs of clients.

What Makes Progent Different from Other Support Firms?
Progent is a Microsoft Gold Partner support firm and Progent's head count, range of IT experience, refined support tools, and understanding of corporate IT allow small offices to escape the limitations of excessive dependence on smaller service organizations, individual freelance service providers, or over=stretched in-house resources.

Progent stands out by providing:

• Certified Knowledge of Microsoft's Entire Family of Server Platforms
  Progent can provide world-class support for Microsoft’s powerful server platforms with services that include Windows Server 2003 help, Windows 2000 Server upgrades, Windows NT migration, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 integration, Microsoft Exchange 5.5 Server and Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 upgrades, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 expertise.

• Best Practices
  Progent’s team of Microsoft and Cisco qualified consultants average more than a decade of real-world industry background, in the trenches of IT support, performing a wide variety of technical projects for an extensive array of clients. Every Progent support professional shares a proven set of personal best practices which are incorporated into shared best practices standards that Progent teaches its consulting staff. This ensures that you get not just world-class IT help, but also a support engineer with field-tested methods for using technical knowledge to solve actual IT problems rapidly.

• Value Pricing
  Progent's pricing model is to charge for remote support and in-person visits per minute. As a result, you pay exclusively for received services. Progent does not impose a more expensive rate for off-hours or urgent support, and inside California or in areas where Progent offers in-person support, Progent does not charge for travel except for emergency support where on-site work is less than four hours. Also, Progent imposes no startup charge and requires no monthly commitment. Many service firms demand substantial minimum fees or charge for each fifteen minutes or longer. Progent's small granularity eliminates big bills for quick fixes so you won't be tempted to permit simple problems to stay unaddressed.

• Full Documentation of Delivered Services
  Progent has created a comprehensive service reporting system that records and formats detailed documentation for all delivered support activities. Unlike some independent consultants or small service organizations who provide minimal documentation or details of services done, each service delivered by Progent is tracked by comprehensive documentation. Every Progent staff member has access to the service reports sent by every staff member to every client. The practice of documenting and archiving support records allows more effective support and avoids a variety of typical misfortunes such as when a service client is effectively held captive to a consultant who refuses to let go of the keys to the kingdom.

• Knowledge Transfer
  Progent practices knowledge transfer from Progent's support experts to customers. By educating clients to deal with problems that are within their comfort zone, Progent is able to focus on offering high-value services where Progent has little competition. Companies who utilize trusted freelance service providers or who maintain internal support personnel benefit when Progent passes on information about new technology and proven methodologies to make their networks more reliable, protected, and productive.

• Automated Network Monitoring with Microsoft MOM
  Progent is one of the only IT service firms to offer round-the-clock system monitoring services powered by Microsoft Operations Manager. MOM allows your computer support to be anticipatory instead of reactive. By revealing potential problems before they cause lost productivity, network monitoring can save your IT network from stressful and expensive service losses.

How Does Our Company Begin Getting Remote Network Help from Progent?
To get started with Progent's online help services or to find out more about Progent's online support options, call Progent at 888-412-5546 or email Progent at information@progent.com. If you have an urgent requirement for IT help, visit Immediate Urgent Support.