Small business and information technology: the top three security issues of a small business are affordability, external threats and internal challenges.

• Author: Colby, Kent L.
• Position: Company Profile

Remember when only doctors wore pagers? Or when checking server status meant dialing into your network by modem? Now most everyone checks e-mail after hours or works on business projects at home.

From a small-business owner/ operator standpoint, the hardware that makes up the IT portion of the business may be included in the definition. The primary focus of this article is the hardware available to the small office/home office sector of the business community, otherwise known as SOHO. This grouping of business ranges from the office comprised of a limited staff, to the home office, and even the workgroup that may or may not be part of a larger organization or workgroup. Bottom line, the needs are very similar.

THE BASICS

The adage: "Location? Location? Location?" now legitimately is expanded to include locations on the Internet. Today's small office must be connected to the Internet. The connection occurs via technology ranging from dial-up to DSL or cable access. Bigger business may jump up to a T-l-dedicated-or-better connection and intra-connection. In fact, particularly in Alaska, companies have started providing their staff with DSL or cable modems at home, allowing the employees to telecommute, be available on call and offer service after hours.

Such a connection is critical-and frankly, there are very few applications nowadays where dial-up access is sufficient for business use. The cost of a higher-speed connection is not a limiting factor like it once was. Internet access, with shared access to Internet and intra-office resources, is perhaps the most critical issue in small offices today, says Marvin Davis, owner/operator of Tongass Business Center. TBC, a regional business headquartered in Ketchikan, serves all of Southeast with cutting-edge, progressive technology.

There was a time when "FAX" was a noun, short for facsimile, and was a luxury item in any office. Nowadays, the word is a noun, adjective, and more often than not, a verb. As it now fits all parts of speech, it also has become a necessity in any office. This single-purpose device can scan and send, and receive and print facsimiles over a phone line to another fax machine. Copy machines, too, have become a necessity for every office. Arguably no office can operate smoothly without one.

Multi-function machines that copy, scan, send and receive faxes or e-mail, and print them, are probably the most useful piece of technology in the small office today. These devices can...