PUBLICATION: HR FUTURE ONLINE

DATE: 29 FEBRUARY 2008

CHANNELING FAXES TO E-MAIL MAKES SENSE

Save on media costs while being more effecient too.

The market is beginning to realize the benefits of investing in fax-to-email solutions and this bodes well for companies and the effectiveness of their external communication strategies. There is a lot more to a credible, well developed fax-to-email solution than simply technology that allows for faxes to be converted and sent/ received as e-mail.

One of the core benefits of this technology is that it does not require additional software/ hardware and therefore no lead time is needed for the installation of equipment. The fax-to-email solution represents a cost saving because there is no need for an expensive fax server system with associated maintenance and support staff. The outbound fax operates with existing e-mail systems including Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Linux, Novell and one gets better print quality when compared to a fax machine.

The system allows the investor to free up Telkom fax lines or use them as telephone lines, and leverages off available communications infrastructure (e-mail, internet infrastructure, systems and software).

Another attractive feature of this technology is that users receive a confirmation of delivery/ non-delivery via e-mail. It eliminates the media cost of incoming faxes, saves on paper and ink, incoming faxes are free and one only has to print required faxes to the printer. A user simply faxes a document to the fax-to-e-mail number, issued upon registration for the service, and this fax is sent through to the mail server at that is located at a datacenter - providing the free fax-to-email solution with redundancy and security.

The server automatically converts the paper document into a Tiff or PDF file and this is then sent through as an e-mail to the intended recipient. It is a fast, secure and effective process. It is encouraging to see the increase in interest and awareness for this practical technology solution for both medium and corporate enterprises.

There is every reason to believe that free fax-to-email will continue to impact positively on internal & external communication processes in the workplace, thereby helping to refine and improve information management, customer relationship management and business processing disciplines.

Walter Bredell is the head of Intergr8 Fax (www.integr8fax.com).