After years of big talk and false starts, the first wave of true SOHO (small office, home office) products are readily available - and contrary to sceptics don`t cost a fortune.
Big name consumer electronics players such as Sony and networking companies have already begun offering personal video recorders, media adapters and home network servers, at pretty reasonable prices.
To top it, products that were usually targeted at government and business sectors now have smaller siblings that offer the necessary functionality on a smaller and yes, cheaper scale.
Take Webcams, for example, until recently this marketplace only accounted for less than half a million units worldwide, which is a tiny drop in the big IT consumer market ocean. However, now they`ve become considerably cheaper, to such an extent that even home users can connect them to their wired or wireless networks.
It`s quite clear that the term home computing has taken on a whole new - less expensive and complex - meaning. The reality is you only need a few components to get you going and then you can start building from there.
OK, so what are the basic ingredients? Firstly, and quite obviously, you need a PC or a notebook. Nowadays, offerings from vendors such as Toshiba and AOpen make notebooks quite affordable, plus they give you that mobility needed. Otherwise, a PC from pretty much any supplier will be fine.
Secondly, you definitely need a printer, and not any printer, an all-in-one or MFP (multifunctional printer) that allows you to print, scan, copy and fax and importantly offer wireless functionality - wireless is, after all, the future.
HP`s ultra-cool Photosmart 2510 all-in-one printer, for example, features colour printing, colour scanning and colour faxing. And although small, this printer offers up to 4 800 x 1 200-optimised dpi colour when printing from a computer and 1 200-input dpi.
To complete your total home solution, you simply need a digital camera, which is ideal for those holiday pictures, memorable moments and work-related documentation, plus with the latest direct printing standards such as PictBridge you won`t even need to switch on your PC.
Add to the above, Internet connectivity, wireless access points - as your home office components are already wireless-enabled - memory sticks and anti-virus software and firewalls and you are ready to go.
The key here is to do some thorough research before you start setting up your home office, whether it`s for work or for leisure. The SOHO marketplace is not going away anytime soon, which means that vendors now ensure that for every high-end product there`s a low-end one to complement it.
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