"I see it as a significant milestone," said Thomas E. Miller, a vice president at Link Resources.

According to Link Resources, a New York research company, 17 million households have personal computers, many of which are used to store recipes, shopping lists and telephone numbers.

The calls are so popular that the "information service" industry is expected to gross $1.2 billion this year and about $2 billion in 1992, according to Link Resources, a marketing research concern.

The hardware/technology aside, deeper forces are driving the home-office market, said Thomas E. Miller, director of the National Work at Home Survey conducted by Link Resources.

Mr. Miller of Link Resources suggested another possible explanation for the decline in the number of people claiming a home-office deduction was "the declining cost of home office products."

Telecommuting would be a good solution, said Thomas E. Miller, vice president of home office research for Link Resources.

In 1992, 183,000, or about 4 percent, of personal computers bought by consumers had multimedia capability, according to Link Resources, a market research firm.

According to Link Resources, a New York electronics consulting firm, the services now available represent a $272 million business, which is expected to nearly double by 1994.

"It's an area of the school market that has really heated up in recent years," said Anne Wujcik, educational program director at Link Resources, a market research firm.

In recent years, home businesses have proliferated to the point where 41.1 million people now work from home either part-time or full-time, according to Link Resources of Manhattan, a research firm.