http://www.osnews.com/story/10916/A_Solution_for_Enterprise_Faxing_Biscom_FAXCOM_Server Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:40:40 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? not Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I couldn't help not reading page 2, 3 and 4 and I couldn't stop thinking about Hylafax.

This is not the place to have this "article" ! Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Why couldn't you help it but thinking about Hylafax? What if that article WAS about Hylafax? Would you think about the article the same way?

Just because a piece of software is commercial does not mean that it does not have a place here. OSNews is not about OSS software you know, it's about /all/ software, commercial or not. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? really lame! Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? If you can't deal with the fact that OSNews is a non-OSS-only site, I suggest you move to another site for your daily reading. I am not part of osnews anymore (I resigned last week, but I will be helping out for this week as David is on vacations), but the osnews goal remains the same, nothing has changed. So, either deal with it, or go elsewhere to troll. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Doesn't OSNews stand for Open Source News ? ;-) Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Are you the real Eugenia ? Can I have an autograph ? Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? May be if the Author mention not just one product, and review the features of several competing product to give us better view, it won't feel as an advertisement.

Do the features also available at competing products?
What is unique in this product? Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? You have to admit Eugenia this article smacks of an advertorial. When magazines run obvious advertorials they often loose a lot of credibility. Same might happen here.

You can probably tell us, was this article paid for?

When I read the intro that was the first thing that entered my mind. Apologies if it is not, but it does have a lot of the elements. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Also I don't mind advertorials as long as they are labeled as such. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? >You can probably tell us, was this article paid for?

I don't know if the author was paid by Biscom, we will never know that. OSNews simply accepts articles by its readers for publication. But I stay by my opinion, if this was an OSS project we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, and this is unacceptable as OSNews does not promote software racism: all software is the same and they should have equal limelight in the press.

Why don't you give the guy the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he really likes that product, maybe it IS a good product!

Please get on topic. If you want to really bring that article down do it in a way that makes sense: COMPARE this product to another and make this forum USEFUL for people who need to know what's best for their daily work. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I didn't get paid for the article. In fact, it was an article written out of my interest and respect for the product. I feel that commercial software has its place, and many osnews readers might be able to take advantage of the functionality within their own companies.

However, I certainly respect the opinions of the osnews readers and appreciate your feedback. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Well you wrote a nice article then.

FYI - the background info to the company probably makes your article seem like an advertorial. Most people don't really care about who makes the software, well the boring kind of software anyway, except when they want to be assured that the company is in a solid financial situation and has the resources to support them and the product. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > FYI - the background info to the company probably makes your article seem like an advertorial.


Very good point! I appreciate the feedback. It certainly helps for future reviews/articles. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? This is exactly the kind of text you would read in a product brochure. I agree that software should get its portion of the limelight regardless of the license but this is taking it way across the borders of responsible journalism. In fact it tramples straight over every principle a good journalist is supposed to abide by.

Now I don't know the exact policy of OSNews so maybe this kind of article is perfectly acceptable here. However I would suggest a policy change if you intend to retain your current readership.

Journalistic principles are there for a sole reason: credibility of the medium. Post more of these obviously promotional articles without any regard for the mentioned product's competitors (like Hylafax, which does much the same thing on *NIX platforms) and OSNews' credibility as an objective source for tech news will sink faster than Titanic.

This is not meant as a troll but rather a constructive comment from someone who's actually in the publication business. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > This is exactly the kind of text you would read in a product brochure.

I am appreciative of your comment!

My motivation for writing this article was to introduce Biscom's product line to the community and to further develop my writing skills. I feel that I evaluated the product in a neutral fashion and also provided my criticisms of the product shortcomings. The article wasn't intended to be a commercial, nor was it intended to be a comparison to similar products. I can't apologize for it seeming advertisement-like. In reality, I was unable to find much to criticize.

Again, I appreciate the feedback from the readers. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Yes. Most of the stuff mentioned in the article can be done with HylaFax. I have here HylaFax working without problems.

I don't see anything special (for me) in this Biscom solution. However... I have to admint, that I absolutly see a market and a reason for this Biscom Fax solution.

They even have a solution for IBM Domino! This shows me, that they have a well designed product.

I know that you can do most of the stuff mentioned in the article with HylaFax. But with HylaFax you don't get that much confort out of the box as you get with this Biscom solution. I don't know the Biscom product, but it seams to be okay. It took me alot of time to integrate HylaFax into Domino (writing many many lines of C code to integrate HylaFax as an DSAPI filter) and it looks like, that Biscom has that all already. Anyway... inboud and outbound faxing is just half of the game. The stuff around the faxing service is much more dificult to do then just plain faxing. A good enterprise solution must have easy interface for managing the fax service, support for many diffrend file formats (automatic sending of Excel, World, PowerPoint, etc.), support for diffrend policies, ....

I want to see that already offered by HylaFax! And all that out of the box. If you know a easy way of automaticly sending attachments, then let me know. Because than I can replace the solution I have now done on my Linux server (runing Wine on a frame buffer and using the varios Microsoft viewers to generate a Postscript document out of the doc, xls, ppt, ...) with the more easy one.

cheers

reflex Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Problem is, Hylafax only works on Unix. This is a Windows application. So, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Administrators running on Win will need to see a comparison between two or more similar apps running on the same OS. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Regardless of the nature of the "article", who uses fax any more? I get maybe two or three requests a year to "fax something to someone" or to get a "fax sent" to me from someone (usually from new clients). They get the hint after the first 4 or 5 minutes of continual laughing on my part. Fax is soooooooo last decade (no matter how much technology you bolt on to it). Way better ways to pass documents around (even documents with hand scribbling on it). Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Faxing is still extremely common in the business world. I still send numerous faxes each week at work to order specific parts that my customers want. A lot of companies prefer to have their orders faxed because then they have a paper copy that can immediatly be handled and archived. I must say that it are mostly the higher-class brands and dealers that want faxes.

Assuming that faxing is dead is extremely shortsighted and plain stupid. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I want to see that already offered by HylaFax! And all that out of the box. If you know a easy way of automaticly sending attachments, then let me know. Because than I can replace the solution I have now done on my Linux server (runing Wine on a frame buffer and using the varios Microsoft viewers to generate a Postscript document out of the doc, xls, ppt, ...) with the more easy one.

Wow, you've gone all out with the integration. :-) I've seen this done on linux servers much more cleanly by integrating it with a Samba printer share and web interface. What you want to do is set up a Samba printer share (generic postscript) that will accept postscript documents, convert them into PDFs or a standard PS, and then store them in a directory somewhere. Then, set up a web interface in which users can view the contents of the directory, select a file, enter a fax number, and release it to hylafax (if you store them as PDF files, they can proof the document before releasing it). You'll need a little bit of programming on the web interface, but it's easy enough to do with PHP.

Another, easier method is to install a PDF printer (CutePDF or equivalent) on each machine and have the users generate a PDF which they can attach to an e-mail to send to the hylafax machine (or drop in a folder with the correct name - however you have it currently set up). This is much easier than supporting various windows-only file formats on a linux box. (I would consider running them through OpenOffice somehow before fiddling with WINE).

Anyway, good luck. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Assuming that faxing is dead is extremely shortsighted and plain stupid.

I agree. While I personally detest using a fax machine (I refuse to most of the time) you are going to have a hard time doing business in certain markets without some type of fax solution. While new technologies are emerging that will hopefully make faxing obsolete, it is going to be so hard to kill because it usually works well and when something works well for a business, they aren't going to change until it doesn't work well any longer ... the joys of business. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I am not part of osnews anymore (I resigned last week

Rejoice!!!

but I will be helping out for this week as David is on vacations)
Can the readership survive one final week?

It may be fine for you to voice your off topic opinion ALL THE TIME Eugenia, while moderating everyone else that you disagree with down, but it will all be over soon.

You will not change the OSNews readership's opninion will not change when you moderate this comment down.

Bye bye. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Biscom has a relase (not entreprise, although)that performs in linux enviroments.
I used AVT/captaris Rightfax from version 4 to 7.2, and it does integrate wery well with Lotus and Exchange.
it integrates also with Oracle financials and some CRM solutions, with minimum programing
Although it performed wery well on OS/2 systems, now it only runs under windows 2k, only.
You can also integrate it under a unified messaging system, using a voice mails servar called callxpress.

Fax is not dead: a lot of comercial and legal systems depends on it. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Problem is, Hylafax only works on Unix. This is a Windows application. So, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Administrators running on Win will need to see a comparison between two or more similar apps running on the same OS.

There are many products for enterprise faxing working on Microsoft Windows. I could name a hand full of solutions in the same area as the described Biscom solution.

What I can tell from my experiance is, that from the function viewpoint most of them are the same (at least the one falling in the same category as the described Biscom solution). The difference is in the way how the management interface is an how scalable the solution is.

However... I see more solutions like TopCall ( http://www.topcall.com/ ) in the enterprise then solutions like Biscom.

I don't have anything against such solutions as Biscom, but enterprise wiede faxing is another beast and has to offer more stuff then the Biscom solution. I personaly would see the Biscom solution on a small department level or on a small ( Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I think we had a few of these at my last place of employment. I couldn't tell you if they worked fine or not, we only supported the hardware and OS, the application was left to another department.

At my current place of employment we use a product from Interactive Intelligence, which includes phone and fax services. I never have to leave my desk to fax again Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Wow, you've gone all out with the integration. :-) I've seen this done on linux servers much more cleanly by integrating it with a Samba printer share and web interface. What you want to do is set up a Samba printer share (generic postscript) that will accept postscript documents, convert them into PDFs or a standard PS, and then store them in a directory somewhere. Then, set up a web interface in which users can view the contents of the directory, select a file, enter a fax number, and release it to hylafax (if you store them as PDF files, they can proof the document before releasing it). You'll need a little bit of programming on the web interface, but it's easy enough to do with PHP.
You missed my point or maybe I did not described well my problem (english is not my native language).

The problem is, that users would like to send a fax from within their current mailsystem/mail client. They want to just send the message to (as example) and then just write some small stuff into the body and attach serval *.doc, *.xls and other files directly to the mail and then send that mail to the fax server.

Most comercial fax servers do automaticly detach the attachments and convert them to the fax specific image format and then the fax server sends the attachments as images to the recipient.

This is a very common functionality found in many fax servers.

I know that I can capture the output of a Samba shared virtual printer and then convert that to Postscript or TIFF and send that stuff over HylaFax. But tell me please how do you handle that inside a mail client? And tell me how do you send (with the print to Samba share solution) a fax wich has 1 cover sheet, 5 xls documents and 1 pdf? And all this in one run?


Another, easier method is to install a PDF printer (CutePDF or equivalent) on each machine and have the users generate a PDF which they can attach to an e-mail to send to the hylafax machine (or drop in a folder with the correct name - however you have it currently set up). This is much easier than supporting various windows-only file formats on a linux box. (I would consider running them through OpenOffice somehow before fiddling with WINE).
If you are using HylaFax, then you can many of the HylaFax clients ( http://www.hylafax.org/links.html ) and avoid using CutePDF or anything like this and still fax any document you can print (most of the clients install as printer driver doing the conversation automaticly for you and sending the data to the HylaFax server in the proper format).

Anyway, good luck.
Thanks Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We've been using Biscom Fax Servers for quite a number of years now. Yes, it a Windows product but now they have a Linux based version as well. We started out wa-a-a-ay back when Biscom faxservers were still running SunOS (located right next door to Biscom) with about 8 2-port, 4-wire analog lines (called E&M). You can easily see the unix roots in the file structure. My company was partially instrumental in getting them to support european PRAs (30-line ISDN trunks)
It a nice product and certainly a lot better than a couple of dozen fax machines mounted on racks (yes, we had those too. Major fun when they ran out of paper or toner and you only notice ofter a couple of dozen faxes arrived...)
They support quite a number of systems (anyone remember Banyan Vines?) and you can buy a SAP Connector based product from Aventix for faxing right from within SAP
Nice product. It does read a bit like an infomercial one has to admit..
Sorry, but I don't see very much what this type of article is doing here either. Nothing to do with OSes, Internet (well, they did have a machine that allowed you to fax to an email-adress....) or Open Source. If OSNEWS is also the place to read about commercial SW in general well, there are a couple of hunderd thousand other similar articles bound for this space.... (yeah, I know, user submitted, not an open source site, go back to slashdot yada yada yada) This is just my view. Please don't take offence. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I want you to stay with OSNews. And make me a moderator. Just continue posting articles/stories and I'll moderate those 30yo children.

You get too emotional over such trivial things like those 30yo kids who whine in the commentary section of the articles. And it's not healthy for you.

And post more of those controversial articles/commentaries. I love how you bust their chops for being sloppy coders (like the recent cairo bit). Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Indeed, not on topic.

>And it's not healthy for you.

Which is why I want out.

thanks anyway. OSNews is working on a user-moderated system btw. It should be ready in a few weeks or months. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? It sure does seem like a one-sided sales pitch for Biscom. Over the years I've had to set up and implement a bunch of enterprise fax servers to test our software against for use by investment banks (talk about large clients...), and Biscom isn't at the top of the list. Not even close.

Where's the Captaris RightFax or Omtool Genifax formerly known as Omtool Fax Sr??? These were what I've seen as the industry leaders for non-OSS fax server market. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I remember all the crap us at NeXT got for our system pricing and that the built-in Faxing capabilities weren't important.

If there is one thing Apple can do is make better solutions for such Corporate needs. Whether they ever will is one of the reasons I didn't stick around to find out. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The reason why I object to this kind of article being posted here (and any other in the same way of writing), is that it is not concerned about what the consequences for the particular field of business are. This is purely a walk-through and a presentation of this software product, not an editorial analysis of what the release of this software or this software's particular approach might bring with it - and thus, to my opinion, it is not of journalistic interest.

A product review with a "score" is, as far as I'm concerned, not journalism. However, I might have misunderstood the direction of this particular site - if that's part of the editorial concept, that's just fine with me. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The author is right that Faxing servers like this run to the $50,000 mark -- even for small enterprises. It's just the nature of centralized enterprise faxing (at least based on commercial products).

We've been using an ASP fax service that has reduced the faxing costs for our 250 attorney law firm to about $2,000 a month, and shares most of the features of a FAXCOM or RIGHTFAX (Bizcom's competitor). When you add in the cost of supporting the FAXCOM product, include the cost of the phone calls themselves, the ASP model really starts to work.

It's also intrisically nice to not have to deploy infrastructure resources and management time to a dying technology like faxing. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? i first flew over few sentences in the article and thought: "paid ad", then i went straight over to the comments, to read a debate on this subject.

after reading the comments, and then reading all pages of the article, i now have the following major point of view:

the whole faxing thing has nothing to do with an os, so it shouldn't be here. like there are no articles about office suits or editors, aren't they? osnews.com should stay os-centric.

okay, then here are some points, why i still consider this article an ad, whether someone got paid for it or not:

- it is about an unknown product from an unknown company and the purpose of this article was to advertise about it to the masses.

- it is not a comparison, but solely dedicated only to this commercial software product.

- it is about commercial product and this makes a huge difference for me. for me, f/oss is not the same and not even equal to commercial software. if it were about a f/oss fax server software, then i would not consider it an ad. but still consider it giga-off-topic, see above, my major pov.

you can call it "software racism", but for me it is not. i just do not want to get news about commercial applications (= ads) here, where i was used to get info about operating systems, whether commercial or not.

if this is going to change - bad, as it is a good site. and sure, i will consider eugenias advice and go away, if this changes will come.

i am a little not up-to-date, eugenia: you wrote, that you are out of this site. ?!?. please, point me to informations about why it became so, who is ruling osnews now, which direction will the site take and so on, thank you in advice. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? So what if a corporation managed to get a story in? On more than one occasion I have managed to post completely false stories. Maybe if your overall editorial standards went up this wouldn't be a problem. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We use Omtools old FaxSr, and Genifax. Both work well.

I have to say, this read as an advert. Sorry, but there was little merit to it as a review. I'm not against reviews for commercial software here, but I think there should be more review and less evangelism. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I don't know if the author was paid by Biscom, we will never know that.

This sounds funny, not that I'm saying it is not true (author said he didn't get paid) but sounds funny.

OSNews simply accepts articles by its readers for publication. But I stay by my opinion, if this was an OSS project we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, and this is unacceptable as OSNews does not promote software racism: all software is the same and they should have equal limelight in the press.

Hey Eugenia, you were the last person I was expecting
b...s..t from. This is not about the product being proprietary, but about if the article was a cheeky, cheap and poorly disguised advertisement attempt.

Adding the word racism to the mix doesn't help you very much to defend your position.

Why don't you give the guy the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he really likes that product, maybe it IS a good product!

Maybe because this site has got a good reputation about twisting headlines and histories so they do not look what they are to get more hits???? Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I reiterate that the product is an excellent product. With little to criticize, any walkthrough of a good product will sound advertisement-like. I am not certain what the future requirements will be for OSnews, but I encourage those who mention that this article was not appropriate to visit the submission guidelines. Until the guidelines change, I remain thankful to OSnews and the readers for allowing casual and professional authors to share their work.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=168 Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? No one is saying that the product is good or bad, what we complain about is that if it is not an AD it looks like, you should understand that.

As for the argument that articles about comercial products are not apropiate here that is not true, any article is welcomed as long as it is not a disguised lame-marketing attempt.

And ultimately the owners of the site decide what gets published and what does not. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I had to go through a recent evaluation of competing enterprise fax products to replace our old one (which actually worked pretty well, but was end-of-life'd). For us, most of the products were feature-rich and had many features in common. The devil was really in the details, particularly with regards to pricing/licensing. Fax server products can license by a combination of one or more methods: per user, per server, per location, # of fax channels, and even by the # of documents transmitted per month. And many of the advertised features end up being add-on options, greatly increasing the cost, and are usually related to integration and methods of delivery.

The article really makes little case on why Faxcom should be perceived as the market leader. Might I suggest http://www.ntfaxfaq.com/ as a starting point on the different products which are available. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We're in the early stages of a central fax pilot in the local school district. But we've gone a slightly different route than the rest who have posted here. Instead of replacing fax machines and integrating faxing into the desktop OS, we've replaced fax machines with uber-photocopiers. Every school in the district has a Toshiba e650 photocopier. This beast has a harddrive inside and runs Linux, providing Samba printers / shares, IP printing, Apple printers / shares, and Novell print queues. It also allows for scan-to-email.

What we did is put HylaFAX onto a server at the board office, installed a BrookTrout fax board, and connected 7 DID lines (giving us 70 incoming phone numbers). Then we programmed all the Toshibas with templates to scan-to-email (internal faxing) and scan-to-fax (external faxing). The Toshibas are connected to our LDAP server allowing for people to send to any employee in the district via a quick e-mail search.

To send a fax, they just send a print job to the document manager on the Toshiba. They walk over to the Toshiba, open the scan-to-fax template, type in the phone number and their e-mail, and release the document. The Toshiba converts the documents to a TIFF, transmits it via e-mail to the HylaFAX server, and then it gets faxed out as a normal fax. A status message is sent back to the sender's e-mail.

Incoming faxes are routed to the HylaFAX server, where it compares the incoming number to a list of locations, converts the fax to a PDF, and then e-mails it to a school e-mail account. The secretary at the school just has to check the school e-mail account periodically.

All we paid for was a continual license for HylaFAX, the BrookTrout board, and a server. Much less than $25,000. And we save $3000 / year / fax line that we replaced (~50 sites if everything continues to work out so nicely).

The only problem is that all outgoing faxes are now relative to the location of the board office, which means that our out-of-town sites must pay long-distance charges to send faxes across the street. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Well if you are looking for a good commercial Fax Solution go to http://www.unison.co.za Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments