Do you want to send an E-mail? Then you need an E-mail address.

Do you want to write documents? Then you need a Word Processing Program.

What makes the SOHO user and big business different is not the software needs but the budget available to meet those needs and the flexibility available to make the choices of which software to purchase.

There are two sides to every coin. While big business has much deeper pockets and can afford the fancy stuff they lack your flexibility to make choices for low cost and free solutions. You might wonder why big business rarely implements free office productivity software. In my opinion it is because they cannot afford to use free software. What??? Yes you heard me. They cannot afford to use free software.

I know at first it sounds unreasonable for me to make that statement. However, it is very accurate. There is always a trade off. Very expensive software has been put through specially designed testing and study to make it more user friendly and intuitive. It takes time for software to mature to the point it is acceptable to big business. This is simply because if you have 1500 users each wasting 15 min. per day trying to figure something out or rekeying info because mistakes were made due to a non intuitive interface that adds up to big bucks. That adds up to something like 375 hours lost time per day due to one application. If you extend the math, that is 1875 hours per week, 97,500 hours per year. If you figure a cost of 20.00 per hr. the total cost is $ 1,950,000.00 per year. That is why big business can afford Microsoft Office 2007 Professional at 200.00 per user but not the free stuff.

You are much more flexible. If you spend 15 minutes figuring out how to do something or wasting clicks due to a poorly designed interface how much does that cost you?

I encourage you to explore this site for answers and return frequently as the material grows. Within you will already find links to free office productivity software and free antivirus software ad well as tools to remove malware. These are key to your safe and productive SOHO environment.