Internet Faxing: Hosted Solutions for the Paperless Office

Fax technology used to be a powerful andmachine. That includes Microsoft Word documents,
widely-used tool in business and communicationsPDF files and scanned images.
because it combines real-time technology withInternet faxing is a hosted service, meaning you don't
hard-copy delivery. There are still some companiesneed to buy and install fax servers, modems, special
that make use of stand-alone fax machines placedhardware and software licenses, or maintain an aging
strategically in office premises to handle their faxingsystem. Instead, you subscribe to a third-party Internet
requirements manually. Others have deployedfaxing service that converts e-mails to faxes and
centralized, network-accessible fax servers thatfaxes to e-mails for you.
extend fax machine abilities to the desktop. In spite ofTo reduce costs and minimize support issues, many
its promised easier administration and cheaper faxing,corporations are choosing Internet faxing from service
however, most deployments failed to meet their goalsproviders. Internet faxing solutions are highly scalable,
because of unexpected, ongoing costs andaccommodating seasonal demands without additional
unpredictable capacity needs.capital investments. Since you only pay for what you
Other downsides to fax servers include:use, Internet faxing make it easy to meet customer
- Hardware and Software Upgradesand vendor needs for as little expense as necessary.
- Telecommunications Management (outbound andKey Benefits of Internet Faxing include:
inbound analog lines)- No Capital Outlay -With no additional hardware to
- Capacity Management and Inventory Assessmentsacquire, capital expenditures are reduced and
- Document Management and Storagedepreciation schedules eliminated. The risks associated
- System Maintenance and Downtimeswith installing 3rd party software on your network are
- System Compatibility, Integration and Developmenteliminated as well.
- Vendor Management (hardware and software)- Utilization of Existing Infrastructure - Because Internet
- Service Provider Managementfaxing services leverage existing email client and
- Human Resource Management (development,infrastructure, getting started is quick and seamless.
systems administration, operations)Another great benefit of internet faxing is that you
- Redundancy and Disaster Recoverydon't have to hire or train additional staff to run the
While companies used to generate huge volumes ofsystem.
paper-based information that requires efficient, secure,- Scalable and Flexible - With Internet faxing ,
and cost-effective distribution and storage of thesecompanies are not constrained by their number of
documents, today's advanced wireless technologyoutbound telephone lines or system capacity. Internet
made it possible for business transactions to befaxing is designed to be highly scalable to handle either
conducted in paperless and digital format, giving rise torapid growth or reduced volume, based on market
the popularity of Internet faxing, a kind of desktoptrends and patterns.
faxing in which outgoing e-mail attachments are turned- Self-Administering - The outsourced fax provider
into faxes and incoming faxes are turned into e-mailperforms any required system maintenance and
attachments.monitoring, upgrading and adding new features as they
With Internet faxing, any document that can bebecome available, freeing up your IT resources to
attached to an email can be faxed to an analog faxfocus on your core business.