Marcella and Middleton(1996) found that most of organizations are now using off the shelf software. The main packages on the market are supplied by Goldmine System, Onyx Software, Broadbase software which are used in both internal Help Desks and External Help Desks.

These are well tested and are used in a multitude of organizations therefore this makes them attractive to implement. There seems is agreement that off the shelf is better. Nearly all the companies in the Fortune 500 are using slightly customized version of the main off the shelf software products. These packages have a range of different modules with call tracking facilities, reporting tools, expert system ality integration with management tools.  The vary in price for very expensive tool used for major organisation to freeware tools.

Some organisations go ahead and develop their own software.  Marcella and Middleton (1996) found that a significant numbers of organisations are using in-house solutions though not as the many as  are using off the shelf software.  The general consensus is that an off the shelf solution is better than in-house because of the complexities of developing the software and increased support.  However it may not always be appropriate to use an off the shelf product. The organisation used in the Case Study for this dissertation developed an in-house product because no commercial product satisfied their requirements fully.  Another factor is the huge cost of purchasing licences for a large support organisations, which can lead them to using an in-house solution.

In a paper written by Black, Saul and Larsson (2000) where they explored purchasing Help Desk software packages they found that none of the main packages on the market fully satisfied their requirements.  There requirements was the ability to track in taken computers, record action to solve problems, to keep track where in the repair process a computer is.  Thomas (1996) is against developing in-house Help Desk software, he writes “if you have a Help Desk then there is a product out there for”.  In-house products work best where they are small and easy to develop.

Although the advantage with in-house products is that they can customised exactly to the organisations needs and will run on the organisation systems.  Off the shelf products advantages are that they are well established, generally less expensive and they are hundreds of hours work gone in writing the software.  There is no lag between development and using software thereby giving a quicker return on money being invested.  Another advantage with off the shelf products is that they often come in the form of modules, such as call incident tracking modules, asset management and these can be integrated together and modules added as requirements of the Help Desk change.