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Small Business / Home Office System

Description: A system designed for someone running a small business, possibly from a home office. The PC must be capable of handling the applications a small business person would typically require. In some cases, a home office PC will "double" as a general purpose PC, which can make it difficult to configure such a system to meet all its different requirements (unless you spend a lot, of course!)

Typical Applications Used: Office applications, financial applications, business and personal management tools, and communications. If also used as a family machine, add the applications used for that purpose.

More Important Requirements Factors: Reliability, availability, performance, cost, upgradeability, service.

Less Important Requirements Factors: Expandability, ergonomics and usability.

Performance Priorities: Moderate. Most business software doesn't require a top-performing machine, but many programs are becoming "bloated" enough today that getting a low-end machine for business purposes is not a good idea. While traditionally the CPU has been the focus, a business PC should have plenty of memory and hard disk space. Video card performance is not nearly as important as with a home machine; a good monitor is.

Recommended PC Types: Configure-to-order PC; retail PC.

Recommended Sources: Local PC shop or highly-rated online/mail-order vendor.

Budget: Generally between $1500 and $2000 for a good system including the peripherals a business will need, but you can get by with less if on a budget.

Next: Corporate PC

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