Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often lack the resources and staff to meet the daily demands of running their IT operations. You don’t need me to tell you that. But what’s the solution? One option is to outsource IT support and, as of today, there’s another player you can add to that group.

IBM and Lenovo this morning launched a joint IT consulting service for SMBs called Lenovo Experts Live. According to a press release, the new service provides 24-hour IT support — via phone or online chat — for help desk services including network connectivity issues, Internet security setup and software application support.

In addition to Lenovo- and IBM-based applications and services, Lenovo Experts Live supports outside vendors’ technologies, too — “not every application, but a wide range of them,” Lenovo’s Kristy Fair told me in an email.

In a statement, Lenova senior VP Chris Askew said of the service, which is also aimed at consumers, “Lenovo Experts Live provides anytime access to experts who can help customers do everything from protecting their PC from viruses and using software applications more effectively to setting up filters for their children’s Internet use.”

The new joint service comes two years after Lenovo, a Hong Kong-based PC maker with reported 2006 revenues of $14.6 billion, acquired IBM’s Personal Computing Division in May 2005.