Dell on Tuesday launched revamped services and support for businesses, government, and education, a significant move in the company's commitment to triple its services business within three years.

In launching ProSupport, Dell is offering customers more options to tailor services to fit their needs. Rather than take a one-size-fits-all approach, Dell has put together packages of options for each category of customer: small and medium-sized businesses, large businesses, government, education, and health care and life sciences.

Organizations, for example, can buy "mission critical" support, which guarantees onsite service in two or four hours. Same-day service is also available.

Dell also offers separate support options for IT staff and for non-IT professionals. For the latter, the company offers "how-to" support for software applications, such as Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Small Business Server, Intuit QuickBooks, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Acrobat. Dell also offers collaborative support with many third-party software vendors.

For IT departments, Dell is offering "fast-track dispatch" of parts and labor and access to a crisis center to handle major outages, virus attacks, or problems caused by natural disasters.

Besides offering response options for handling problems, Dell has launched "Proactive Maintenance," which offers assessment and recommendations for driver and firmware updates and application of customer-approved patches and system updates. Dell also offers assessment services for storage area networks, as well as Dell's computing hardware.

The new offerings replace Dell's tiered services structure, in which customers could choose from a variety of service levels, such as platinum, gold, or silver. The latest system takes a more customizable approach to support. Dell's nonconsumer support is sold through channel partners.

Chief executive and founder Michael Dell said in November that the company planned to triple the size of its services business within three years. To help achieve such growth, Dell went on a buying spree that started in July with the acquisition of SilverBack Technologies, which sold technology that helps service providers manage and monitor their customers' servers, storage systems, networks, and desktops.

In November, Dell announced it would acquire Everdream, a provider of on-demand software services for managing business PCs, and in August acquired ASAP, a provider of software and services for IT asset management.