The services were culled in line with reductions that saw 19 varieties of SMB service warranties cut to three.

Dell SMB division services business manager Kush Naidu said few customers subscribed to return-to-base servicing - where hardware is packaged and shipped off for inspection - because downtime can last days and problems can persist.

"A customer could spend 4 hours packing up, shipping, waiting three days and reinstalling a machine and it may not still run.... it could be a network cable or something else that is the problem," Naidu said.

"With [on-premises] servicing, the part is delivered and an engineer comes and stays on-site until the problem is fixed."

Naidu, who has worked for Dell for 11 years, said the recession will see growth in managed service support. He said Dell's local servicing represents about 7 percent of SMB division revenue, and about 17 percent of enterprise revenue.