PUBLICATION: HR FUTURE ONLINE

DATE: 06 NOVEMBER 2007

FAX TO EMAIL HELPS WITH PAPERLESS OFFICE

Channel your fax through to e-mail.

The market is beginning to realise 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 an 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.

Users can now simply fax a document to the fax-to-e-mail number, issued upon registration for the service.

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 and 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 managing director of Integr8 FAX (www.intergr8fax.com).