"Virtual offices" go high-tech.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.

With today's sophisticated communication devices, you can take you office work anywhere.

For today's business struggling in the highly competitive global marketplace, the future is here. Cellular phones and emerging computer hardware technology have experts raving about "virtual offices," "virtual facilities" and other revolutionary new ways of conducting business.

The first major wave of this shift came through the introduction of the personal computer to the workplace. Ordinary office tasks, such as writing letters and memoranda and keeping track of income and expenditures - tasks which used to be done on typewriters and in penciled ledger entries are now performed routinely on personal computers. Even small businesses, operating in every conceivable industry, are using computers to pump up productivity and increase efficiency.

LANs, WANs and Clouds

After computers came Local Area Networks (LANs). These allow desktop computers to work together on a common pool of information, such as a database, and to share common peripherals, such as laser printers. LANs are especially useful in medical centers, larger law offices and in wholesale and retail situations, where they allow inventory control to take place automatically while sales and receivables are simultaneously recorded at different workstations.

Now Wide Area Networks (WANs) are taking such connectivity one step further. According to former Alaskan Craig Mischenko, co-owner of Geneva Computer Solutions in Hillsdale, Mich., "WANs are an emerging technology providing businesses with long-distance communication tools, including the typical applications for computer uses, as well as more advanced applications like video conferencing and multimedia presentations."

Mischenko recently attended a...