While a major ISP reports it has delivered more than one million e-mail faxes to its subscribers after 12 months of offering the service, a local fax machine manufacturer says this is having little impact on its products.
According to M-Web, the country`s largest consumer Internet service provider, its Faxmail product allows its members to fax from their PCs and to receive free faxes from normal fax machines directly to their inbox.
The service comprises a separate fax number for each member and when faxes are sent to it, the fax will arrive in the member`s M-Web mailbox just like any other e-mail. M-Web members receive an unlimited amount of faxes for free.
Russell Dreisenstock, M-Web home division general manager, says more than 25 000 members use the service.
International faxes can also be sent at a significantly lower cost, Dreisenstock says.
Pretoria-based The Notebook Company has just launched a free fax to e-mail service. Using Fax2Mail software, the fax is e-mailed as a standard TIF file. The Notebook Company CEO Christopher Riley says this does away with the need for a fax machine and its associated costs, as well as reducing the problem of getting a fax "whenever, wherever".
However, Gestetner marketing manager Michael Stanley says that according to his figures standalone fax machine sales only saw a 12% decrease in 2003 and 2004.
"What is clear is that the market for standalone faxes is declining more slowly than many expected. There is still a role for the standalone fax, especially in smaller businesses, as sometimes it is simply more convenient," he says.
During the same period Gestetner saw sales of its multifunction printers (MFP) - combination of printer and fax machines - grow by 100%.
Stanley says the move to MFPs is not surprising, especially as devices include "electronic faxing" where faxes are not necessarily input or output using hardcopy paper, but can come directly from electronic documents and can be sent directly to electronic mailboxes.
Stanley says another aspect that`s reducing the usage of conventional fax is scan-to-email, which most MFPs support. "The advantage of scan-to-email is that it send files faster, using existing e-mail infrastructure. You can send larger files, in colour and higher resolution."
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