Die, fax machine, die!

If there's one piece of office equipment we'd gladly show the door, it's the fax machine. Let's face it: the technology hasn't changed a whole lot since Alexander Bain patented the first fax machine in 1843 (OK, they did get rid of that slimy paper). Yet, despite the growth of e-mail, cellphones, voicemail and Blackberrys — not to mention fax spam — fax machines continue to waste space and paper in most offices. The New York Times reports that some 1.5 million fax machines were sold in the U.S. last year — not including multifunction boxes that fax, scan and print. The newspaper points to low prices, perceived security and legal needs (such as signature requirements) as reasons the ancient technology has stayed in use so long. As long as it's not retro-chic. Pokias we can live with; faxes becoming hip would be just too much to bear.

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

Every time I try to get rid of my fax machine I realize why I still need one around. It's just the easiest way of faxing documents - just like we can't get rid of snail mail just because we have email, we can't get rid of fax machines just because we have the internet. What are the alternatives to fax machines if you need to send somebody a paper document? The only thing you can really do is scan it and email it (or worse, pay actual money to sign up for a fax service so you can send and receive actual faxes if you don't have a dial-up modem), which takes forever compared to just dialing a phone number. I mean yeah, a PC can do it, but a PC can fry an egg too if you harness the heat from your CPU - that doesn't mean it's a practical idea.

Like it or not, this is not a paperless society and never will be. And as long as we have to fill out paper forms by hand and sign them, we will always need fax machines.

I do wish the technology would progress past the dial-up stage, though... why is it that fax machines all still seem to use 14.4 modems? Why can't I have a fax machine hooked up to my broadband connection? (I suppose maybe now that VoIP is taking off, we'll start to see machines that can take advantage of it.) This will not only be easier but hopefully will allow for better quality faxes.

[Stone @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I'm really suprised that no one has pioneered Fax Over IP, especially since many businesses use broadband connections.

[Sergey @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

Fax over IP = scan, send, recieve, print, over the internet
Which is the same as e-mail, just with scanning and printing automated.

[Ryan Murphy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I led the conversion of our small insurance office to paperless last year and truly we have not been disapointed at all. For $10 a month we get fax service over the internet vie MyFax.com, which also allows us to send outgoing faxes by simply sending attachements to the fax [e-mail]. When you factor in the cost of a phone line at $20+ a month, and the space we save by automatically digitally archiving everything we send, the service is well worth the little extra time it takes. Not to menion no annoying fax machine noises! Just make sure you get a Fujitsu ScanSnap for scanning in the documents, you will love it!

[yuppicide @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I don't mind fax machines. I just wish they'd upgrade the technology. They're still slow as crap using what 28.8 or 14.4 technology?! Can't they speed them up?!

[Hector D @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

My fax machine is hooked up to a Vonage line. Would that be faxing over IP? ;)

Hector

[juliuss @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

What strikes me is that we need better integration between paper and digital documents. Printing is easy, but getting a paper document back into the PC is hard. I'm not talking about just scanning an image. I mean actually picking up a paper document, shooting it through a scanner, and editing it in Word a few seconds later. That kind of integration would be helpful to so many people.

And the other thing is signatures. Why bureaucrats are still so hung up on signing documents is beyond me. Scanning a signature and printing it out on a document -- especially one that will be faxed -- is ridiculously easy.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

#5, there is a fax technology called Super G3 or something along those lines that is essentially 33.6K speed. Better fax machines (read: not bottom-of-the-line) have that.

MFPs such as HP's LaserJet 4101 do not have Super G3 nor do they have very good fax modems, in my experience.

[William Volk @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I launched a Internet based replacement for faxing approvals and markups in 2000 called ZipProof. The key features are: No log in required, runs on any browser (including Smartphones), informs the sender when the item has been reviewed and/or marked up. Major customer in Chile.

Faxing is free, of course. ZipProof is simpler though.

www.ZipProof.com

[ashmist @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

#7, HP has a digital sender that makes getting the docs back into the computer a breeze. its like a document copier that creates a pdf file and emails it out. It's about the same size as a small fax machine.

We used to use it in my previous company. it was great to load up the tray with a bunch of stuff and a few seconds later a pdf would appear in your inbox. Way overpriced, though.

[Indramin Darmadi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

Fax machine's infrastructure is much much simpler than an email. It's literally plug and play.
I live in a not-an-information-superhighway-country, where you'll have to wait months for a land line (we are talking about the capital city here), unless you do some bribing ($200) and they will install one for you next week.

I just plug in a fax machine to a phone line, and I can receive fax from all over the world.
Email has to go from the sender computer to a mail server, to a few net hops, into the receipient's mail server. Then I have to get connected to Internet to download it.

Of course the advantage with email I can get the document as an attachment, as with fax I only got a copied hard copy.

I only wish they mass produced a higher speed fax, and a color fax. :)