Fax technology used to be a powerful and widely-used tool in business and communications because it combines real-time technology with hard-copy delivery. There are still some companies that make use of stand-alone fax machines placed strategically in office premises to handle their faxing requirements manually. Others have deployed centralized, network-accessible fax servers that extend fax machine abilities to the desktop. In spite of its promised easier administration and cheaper faxing, however, most deployments failed to meet their goals because of unexpected, ongoing costs and unpredictable capacity needs.

Other downsides to fax servers include:

? Hardware and Software Upgrades

? Telecommunications Management (outbound and inbound analog lines)

? Capacity Management and Inventory Assessments

? Document Management and Storage

? System Maintenance and Downtimes

? System Compatibility, Integration and Development

? Vendor Management (hardware and software)

? Service Provider Management

? Human Resource Management (development, systems administration, operations)

? Redundancy and Disaster Recovery

While companies used to generate huge volumes of paper-based information that requires efficient, secure, and cost-effective distribution and storage of these documents, today's advanced wireless technology made it possible for business transactions to be conducted in paperless and digital format, giving rise to the popularity of Internet faxing, a kind of desktop faxing in which outgoing e-mail attachments are turned into faxes and incoming faxes are turned into e-mail attachments.

With Internet faxing, any document that can be attached to an email can be faxed to an analog fax machine. That includes Microsoft Word documents, PDF files and scanned images.

Internet faxing is a hosted service, meaning you don't need to buy and install fax servers, modems, special hardware and software licenses, or maintain an aging system. Instead, you subscribe to a third-party Internet faxing service that converts e-mails to faxes and faxes to e-mails for you.

To reduce costs and minimize support issues, many corporations are choosing Internet faxing from service providers. Internet faxing solutions are highly scalable, accommodating seasonal demands without additional capital investments. Since you only pay for what you use, Internet faxing make it easy to meet customer and vendor needs for as little expense as necessary.

Key Benefits of Internet Faxing include:

? No Capital Outlay ?With no additional hardware to acquire, capital expenditures are reduced and depreciation schedules eliminated. The risks associated with installing 3rd party software on your network are eliminated as well.

? Utilization of Existing Infrastructure ? Because Internet faxing services leverage existing email client and infrastructure, getting started is quick and seamless. Another great benefit of internet faxing is that you don't have to hire or train additional staff to run the system.

? Scalable and Flexible ? With Internet faxing , companies are not constrained by their number of outbound telephone lines or system capacity. Internet faxing is designed to be highly scalable to handle either rapid growth or reduced volume, based on market trends and patterns.

? Self-Administering ? The outsourced fax provider performs any required system maintenance and monitoring, upgrading and adding new features as they become available, freeing up your IT resources to focus on your core business.