Small office/home office

Beginning in the mid-1980s, the advent of the personal computer and fax machine, plus breakthroughs in telecommunications, created opportunities for office workers to decentralize.

Many consultants and the members of such professions like lawyers, real estate agents, and surveyors in small and medium-sized towns operate from home offices.

Several ranges of products, such as the armoire desk, all-in-one printer, virtual assistants, home servers and network-attached storage are designed specifically for the SOHO market.

These range from general advice texts to specific guidebooks on such challenges as setting up a small PBX for the office telephones.

Technology has made this possible through email, the World-Wide Web, e-commerce, videoconferencing, remote desktop software, VPN, VLAN, webinar systems, and telephone connections by VOIP.