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Faxes are embedded into the workflow of many business processes: in call centers, marketing programs, purchasing, invoicing and application processing. Corporations struggle to reduce costs and effectively manage their fax infrastructure. Fax servers (network accessible fax machines) promised easier administration and cheaper faxing but most deployments fail to meet their goals because of unexpected, ongoing costs and unpredictable capacity needs. Outsourced messaging services eliminate administration and maintenance costs and offer pay-per-use pricing.
Fax Servers
Fax servers are centralized, network-accessible platforms that extend fax machine utility to the desktop, thereby automating the process of sending faxes. Fax servers reduce the need for individual fax machines.
Fax servers include the following components:
- An underlying hardware platform
- Embedded fax modems or cards
- Telephone lines
- Client software
- Administration software
- Application development tools
With fax servers, users send and receive faxes directly from their workstations, eliminating the inefficiencies related to manually sending and receiving faxes. IDC analyst Peter Davidson estimates the labor cost of manually sending a fax with a fax machine to be $3.20 (USD). As centralized, managed resources, fax servers eliminate the proliferation of analog phone lines and significantly reduce the labor costs associated with fax machines.
While realizing reduced labor costs, deploying a fax server requires other significant initial capital investment and places a costly burden on IT resources. For example:
- Initial inventory assessments on fax phone line capacity requirements
- Ensuring system compatibility and integration
- Ongoing software and hardware upgrades
- Ongoing telecom costs
- Significant maintenance and long-term capacity management
- Maintaining system uptime
Projects to deploy fax servers typically take 8-10 weeks, involving the coordination between the IT department, the telecom provider and the fax server vendor.
Top Three Reasons Fax Servers Fail
- Demands high initial capital and deployment costs, ongoing monthly fees for fax lines and DID and regular costs associated with software and hardware maintenance.
- Demands ongoing peak and average telecom capacity management.
- Demands in-depth redundancy and disaster recovery planning.
Outsourced Fax Services
Outsourced faxing solutions leverage existing technology deployments such as email and the Internet to send and receive faxes. Like fax servers, outsourced fax services provide simple client access allowing faxes to be sent and received from email. Outsourced solutions enable web access, which is important for mobile workers. Additionally, XML interfaces allow for fax delivery automation via existing investments, such as CRM and ERP.
Outsourced services require no hardware or software, and can be used immediately, allowing organizations to allocate IT resources to core systems. Critically, the only costs incurred with this type of service are usage costs. There are no hidden costs for maintenance, upgrades, capacity expansion or redundancy.
The fax market has evolved much the same way computers have. Computer usage began with mainframes, which evolved into client servers and most recently, has progressed into web-based applications. Similarly, the fax market has evolved from fax machines to fax servers, and now, outsourced fax services. The outsourced fax service market has realized significant growth over the last six years.
MyFax is an Internet-based fax solution from Protus ip solutions that lets you send and receive faxes using existing email infrastructure and the Web.
Easy to administer, MyFax leverages your existing email/Internet infrastructure, providing a cost-effective fax solution that allows users to send and receive faxes directly from their workstations.
- No additional hardware or software required.
- As easy to use as email.
- Automatically track, file and forward incoming and outgoing faxes from email.
- No lost or misplaced faxes. Automated email confirmations ensure delivery and receipt of all information communicated by fax.
- 99.95% uptime, available 24/7: never busy.
- Save 40% of fax operating costs in year 1 by eliminating fax machine maintenance and expensive fax line costs.
- Account management tools enable real-time account modifications and generation of usage reports according to agent/workstation, client, or campaign/project.
- Fax delivery procedures can be automated through SMTP and XML APIs.
- Integrates with CRM and ERP software.
Conclusion
Outsourced fax services, like MyFax, eliminate the time, effort and cost issues associated with fax servers, but retain all of the same functionality.
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