When the IT business gets slow at huge companies, vendors "discover" the small business market. Whether that's the reason in full or part, now seems to be a golden time for small businesses that need IT support, because the line of vendors ready to help keeps getting longer.

Let's talk about two of those new entrants into the market. First, focusing on the small end of the small business spectrum, is Staples (the office supply giant) and its new Staples Network Services. Second is Sparxent, a company acquiring regional IT providers to focus on servicing companies with from 200 to 2000 employees.

Staples has long sold technology (computers, laptops, printers etc.) and now wants to help you better manage those. As part of its Staples Business Advantage program, it just announced Staples Network Services. The target is companies with 20-250 employees. The current customer profile in the soft launch prior to the official launch on Sept. 24 has been companies with about 40 employees, but no full time IT person. There are about 8 million small businesses in the U.S. with 25 or fewer employees, so this market can certainly absorb another big player.

Since the focus groups told Staples it didn't have enough credibility with the public to be taken seriously as a major technology player, the official name for the new program is Staples Network Services by Thrive. Who? Thrive is, or was, an IT support company in the Boston area with about 85 employees. Staples bought them in December 2006 to be the foundation of this new service.

Speaking of service, Staples Network Services will offer antispam, antivirus, operating system patching, system and network monitoring, and remote support as their base system. Notice the "remote" emphasis, as group president Jim Lippie told me they can solve 95 percent of customer problems remotely. For those issues that need feet on the street, Lippie works with one of the large national IT "tech for hire" groups to solve those issues. They're limiting their onsite services now to Boston and Atlanta, so they can get their processes ramped up before they expand nationally.

Backup, always an issue for small businesses, will be available with Thrive Backup powered by EMC (really Mozy Enterprise). Automatic backups from each workstation, laptop, and server will transfer securely over the Internet to online storage facilities. Mozy Enterprise has a good reputation for small business backup, although most people think of Mozy as a consumer product. Nope, they do your business computers and servers as well.