Fax industry facts and fiction:

In a recent interview with Max Schroeder (News - Alert), senior vice president of FaxCore, Inc. a provider of fax solutions, he dispelled the many myths surrounding fax over IP - also known as FoIP. Schroeder has been in the fax server industry since its inception. 

 

With respect to question 1, the answer is 'fiction.' Schroeder said he was first asked the question of 'when will e-mail replace fax' at a conference in Melbourne Australia in 1990. That was two decades ago and people are still asking the same question. 'I am sure that someone will approach me with that question at ITEXPO (News - Alert) West in October,' Schroeder said.

 

The response to statement No. 2 above is 'fact.' 'Fax is an old product concept but so are automobiles and windmills and they also seem to be selling well and getting better all of the time,' Schroeder explained.

 

And the answer to the third statement above is 'fact.' This parallels No. 2 in that the fax industry is evolving just as the automotive and windmill industries. 

 

'All three are driven by new technologies and solutions. Comparing a modern fax server or hybrid fax solution to a 1970's fax machine is similar to comparing a modern windmill to those pictured in an Old Dutch painting,' Schroeder said. 'With the invention of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine, many people thought windmills would become extinct. But a windmill is still a viable energy solution because it is a cost-effective green solution just like today's fax technology.'

 

Another industry source, Peter J. Davidson, president of Davidson Consulting, a firm that specializes in market research and consulting for the facsimile and unified communications industries was asked to comment and responded:

 

'I've been watching this market for a long time and every time someone says that some technology is going to obsolete fax, I just shake my head. It won't be e-mail because e-mail has been around a long time already. And it won't be digital signatures, because fax remains a much stronger market than digital signatures. In fact, no technology is going to make fax obsolete. Fax will not go away until the current generation, that sees a real need for fax, dies off - and not a minute before then.'

 

The market for IP fax is reviving the fax business and the FoIP market is thriving. The IP fax market will grow at a 34.5 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014 while the market for conventional fax servers will decline at a -7.4 period CAGR for the same period, according to Schroeder.

 

In addition, production fax is a major factor in the success of the general fax market. FoIP production faxing will grow at a 32 percent CAGR through 2014 and production faxing will cause more pages to be faxed than desktop faxing throughout the forecast period.

 

According to Davidson, 'The act of linking multifunction peripherals (MFPs) to fax servers will continue to grow as the desire for labor savings, to meet compliance regulations and gain security over faxing operations, pushes the MFP market deeper into computer-based fax.'

 

Over the five-year forecast period, fax server sales that connect to MFPs is expected to grow 18.8 percent and fax server-enabling MFPs will account for nearly one-third of the 2014 fax server market.

 

'With the invention of steam engines and the internal combustion gas and diesel engines, many people thought windmills would become extinct but it is still a viable energy solution because it is cost effective and is a green solution,' Schroeder continued on this parallel. 'So it looks like fax facts or fax fiction proves that fax is here to stay. Fax continues to be a cost-effective, secure and green communications solution that staying parallel with the latest unified communications technologies from the world's leading vendors.'