Fax is dead?! Who needs it?!

Fax is dead, as outdated as the quill and inkwell. Right? Perhaps not.

Brooktrout Technology, the acknowledged leader in the intelligent fax board industry reported another great year of fax board sales. Fax servers are still in demand. And, for companies who already have a fax server, it is considered a mission critical application. Along with the increasing use of email and the internet, world-wide fax traffic is growing as well. How can this be in today’s wired and wireless world?

One answer is that not everyone lives and works in our IT world. Entire industries would come to a halt without faxes; finance, insurance, shipping, health care, construction, engineering, design and energy, just to name a few.

For commercial documents necessary to be on a corporate letterhead or to carry a signature, email will not suffice. Equally, most organisations will not accept an Order unless it is on corporate letterhead - which can be achieved by fax, not so with email. Fax is a legal document; email is not.

Reality

For nearly 20 years, businesses and individuals alike have relied upon fax for simple, fast and confirmable delivery of information and documents. The documents that are faxed are often the ones that move business; Purchase Orders, Invoices, stock trade confirmations, bills of lading, and contracts.

The Internet started becoming pervasive a mere five to ten years ago and the corporate wide use of email is even younger. Although it may seem like everyone from Grandma and Grandpa to the youngest child in the family is on-line, not everyone is connected yet. It’s estimated that at least 25% of the world does not have access to email or the Internet, but nearly everyone has access to a fax machine. Perhaps that’s one reason why World-wide fax traffic is increasing every year.

As we all know, the technology changes rapidly in the IT industry, but people and their habits don’t change quickly.

The challenge

Our task is to incorporate, not eliminate, the traditional means of communication into our fast paced internet enabled economy. Although emails often replace a telephone call and most web sites are glorified yellow page ads, we all still use the telephone and phone books when we want to call someone or find a business. When it comes to commerce, we still find it very easy to send a fax or request an order to be faxed to us. Our challenge is to look for new and innovative ways to incorporate faxed information into our evolving digital world.

The Solution

Use web enabled, scalable services and the Microsoft .Net framework to deliver seamless, browser and email driven fax communications. A properly implemented Computer Based Fax (CBF) solution will enable the organization to send and receive faxes in the same manner they would any other electronic communication. Consider the following requirements and solutions available from a next generation fax server solution.

Melissa Moreno

http://www.turnkey-script.com/