Advantages of a Network for Your Home or Office

You’re heard a lot of buzz around home and office networks, so you’re thinking about one for yourself. If you’re wondering what the benefits and drawbacks of a network are for your home or office, you’ve come to the right place

File Sharing: Networks offer a quick and easy way to share files directly. Instead of using a disk or USB key to carry files from one computer or office to another, you can share files directly using a network.

Software Cost and Management: Many popular software products are available for networks at a substantial savings in comparison to buying individually licensed copied for all of your computers. You can also load software on only the file server which saves time compared to installing and tracking files on independent computers. Upgrades are also easier because changes only have to be done once on the file server instead of on individual workstations.

Security: Specific directories can be password protected to limit access to authorized users. Also, files and programs on a network can be designated as “copy inhibit” so you don’t have to worry about the illegal copying of programs.

Resource Sharing: All computers in the network can share resources such as printers, fax machines, modems, and scanners.

Communication: Even outside of the internet, those on the network can communicate with each other via electronic mail over the network system. When connected to the internet, network users can communicate with people around the world via the network.

Flexible Access: Networks allow their users to access files from computers throughout the network. This means that a user can begin work on a project on one computer and finish up on another. Multiple users can also collaborate on the same project through the network.

Workgroup Computing: Workgroup software like Microsoft BackOffice enables many users to contribute to a document concurrently. This allows for interactive teamwork.