Many business find that hiring and "housing" full-time programmers for all projects is inflexible and expensive.  With modern technology, to include "remote assistance" applications, cell-phones, cheap long-distance, fax, FTP transfers and email the vast majority of IT functions can be done with no travel time, or other traditional office expenses.  This is especially useful when an IT professional is only needed part of the time, or even momentarily, and only charges for the time actually spent on the project.