Accessto the Internet is rapidly becoming a necessity in today’s businessenvironment. Internet access at my business enables workers to perform a widevariety of tasks, from seeing what the competition is doing to formalizingprocedures and finding solutions from others who have experienced the sametechnical problems. The benefits of Internet access is limitless. Employees canbe actively involved in their tasks at hand while waiting for an e-mail responseto an important question or section of an important joint task.
E-mail is usedextensively and has become such an important tool that it is in many casesreplacing the Postal System. Why pay such high prices, and then wait for severaldays for the information, presentation or important documentation that you needwhen you can have it instantly. This new electronic means of communication hashad a definite negative impact on the Postal Systems profits, but it has boostedthe speed by which we conduct business to match the tempo of today’s businessworld. Another benefit of the Internet is FTP, or File Transfer Protocol. FTPrefers to one of the protocols within the protocol suite used on the Internet.
The File Transfer Protocol makes it possible to transfer files from one computer(called the “host” ) on the Internet to another. A user of an FTP programmust log in to both hosts in order to transfer a file from one to the other. Itis common for a user with files on more than one host to use the FTP program totransfer files from one host to another. In this case, the user has an accounton both hosts involved, so he has passwords for both hosts. An additionalbenefit of Internet access is Offline web browsing. This software is loaded onyour computer and allows you to download sites to your hard drive for localviewing.
The benefits are obvious, the first being speed. Many sites on the webcontaining large graphic files that are slow to download and actually waste timebecause your computer is rendered useless while you wait for them. There arealso image maps, audio, video and other multimedia objects that take forever toreach your computer. This is where the advantages of Off-line browsing come intoplay.
You can easily share web based information with your coworkers withoutwaiting for pages to download. The concept is ideal for corporate presentations- all the pages you need to demonstrate are stored locally for instant access. The most obvious benefit is that you don’t need to be connected to the Internetin order to browse your favorite sites. If you happen to have an internetservice plan that charges by the hour, you can download a site very quickly,then peruse it offline at your own leisurely pace.
In conclusion, Internetaccess in my business is a required tool that is utilized to continually providebetter service to our clients. The Internet allows us to immediately obtain andtrade information that is of mutual benefit to both individual tasks andcorporate ventures. The internet has become an integral part of our dailybusiness life. Should we loose this capability, our success and marketabilitywould immediately suffer because we would loose our market edge.
