Are IT helpdesk and IT support two different fields?

I mean, maybe initially it might be hard to demarcate these two fields. What does these two jobs actually involve? Actually I am standing at crossroads now. I have to choose which field(career) to focus on. I am more of a technical guy, less a sales person. I prefer limited interaction with customers. I think IT support/Computer Technician might be a good starting point for me. Please let me know where can these fields lead me to. Actually, I have a Masters in IT(completed in 2006), I have theoretical knowledge of all the main areas like programming, databases, project management etc. But I have not been working in IT(Computers) for last 2 years. Please guide me.

Real knowledge is experiences, the rest are just theory.

Without disrespect, although you have a Master in IT, you are not qualify for the job.

Because without experiences, I don't think you can troubleshoot simple problems like

1) printer cannot print
2) display problem
3) windows error
4) virus problem
5) hard disk errors

The users may get more help by going to www.google.com

I feel that you get a job as a software developer as a starting point.

Heldesk deals with FAQs, and IT deals with deeper, more specific questions that involve fixing the computer.

Not any simpler than that.

I know this because I used to work for HP and customers refereed to many different types of categories that either are FAQs or actually fixing a PC.

IT helpdesk is more of a BPO or KPO industry. This is basically a call centre work where you are mostly working on-call support from end users or some specific set of users. You are first line of interaction when it comes to a support project. They take down the initial request and the problem report. This is also called L1 support.


IT Support

This is a more specific and techical area and these are mostly found with services company, though BPO-or KPO can have IT support with them.

Its a much higher level or support. There are different teams and skilled people of various technoligies are combined to make such a support. LIKE DBA for the database maintenance. oracle , MS SQL admins, DB2 admins

APP server admins - application server admins , like Webpsphere, weblogic, Sunone, Jboss admins

Unix Admins- Unix system administrator, shell script experts

Network admin - Network administrator

Content management admins- these are like databases but with object specific goals, stuff like documentum

Third party tools admins- there are lot of middleware like , Webpshere MQ, Webspere process servers, TIBCO etc..

Developers - Java, .NET -- people who create pathches if there is any problem or requirement for modification of the applicaiton.

Testing professionals - Loadtesters using Loadrunner , functionality testers -- Winrunner , rational tools, Quick test professionals and many more..

Mainframe admins -- IBM AS400 mainframe systems..to manage these legacy systems.

DataWarehousing professionals -- people who manage the various datawarehousing and work with databases and other softwares like INFORMATIKA.

Reporting tools professional - Crystal reports, cognos reportnet.. professionals hadling reporting

So you can see the term IT support is a huge umbrella and this is kind of a project that is running these days a lot, lot of outsourced projects are support project. You can classify yourself and choose what you want to be in this umbrella..

all the best