This History of Fax "According to Art"

Go ahead, you can do it, no one will see you. It's ok to hug your fax.

Facsimile "make similar", "make a copy" was invented in 1843 by Scottish mechanic and inventor Alexander Bain. He received a British patent for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs”, and the fax was born, well not entirely.

Alexander Bain's fax machine transmitter scanned a flat metal surface using a stylus mounted on a pendulum. The stylus picked up images from the metal surface. An amateur clock maker, Alexander Bain combined parts from clock mechanisms together with telegraph machines to invent his fax machine.

I can remember one of the main applications for fax was that of military use, when we demonstrated the technology we also spoke of how it was first used by the military. In fact the military adopted faxing in 1943 to transmit maps, orders and weather charts during World War II.

The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part 2"

Part #2

When digital copiers first arrived on the scene, we were all happy that copiers were now capable of network printing, network scanning and faxing. In the early days the biggest benefit to the end users was that if the copier jammed (and they all did), during a copy or print job, you would be able to clear the jam, then reset the system and the copier remembered what page was not copied or printed and you would be able to continue with the job.  When this happened with analog systems you pretty much had to trash the entire copy job and start all over, what a drag that was especially if it happened with a demonstration.

For those of us that were in the industry with the emergence of digital copiers we saw the benefit of having one system that would replace three systems, the existing analog copier, the printer and the fax machine.  The cost per page of fax machines and stand alone printers always and still have a higher cost per page.  I can remember in the late nineties compiling my own cost per analysis for each device and it wasn't easy.  You had to access specs from brochures, get cartridge prices and yields from industry published copier, printer and fax spec check books.  It was an easy sale when you could present an immediate ROI for most customers to replace three systems with one. Traditionally analog copiers and digital copiers always had a lower cost per page than laser printers and fax machines. I'm thinking copier dealers started the managed print/copy trend by offering an all inclusive cost per page contracts with the digital systems and we didn't even know it.

We did have our issues!  We were copier service and sales companies now trying to offer support and solutions for print/fax and scan environments.  Many of the early network copies never printed as fast as they were advertised, print drivers were awkward and it seemed we always had some type of issues with installing print drivers, and addressing print issues. But, we moved forward as an industry with improved technology from the manufacturers and other third party suppliers.  I believe the service model for copiers and the planned obsolescence of supplies and parts always kept us in tune and in front of the customer.

At sometime in the late nineties and early 2,000's we started to see third party hardware and software solutions from companies like eCopy, and Equitrac. I'm sure there were more however I can't remember any of the other players.  Companies like Ecopy and Equitrac allowed copier dealers to move into selling software, supporting software and also presented opportunities for professional services. Within a few years there were many other companies that emerged with additional solutions.  All of these third party providers added value to the digital copier.  Thus salespeople had more opportunities to sell solutions in many different vertical markets and larger companies as well.  The once ridiculed copier that took the butt of all the office jokes emerged as the central hub in the office for processing information on paper.

The digital copier industry of today is changing again and companies like Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon are making the transition to service led companies. These companies will be the sole provider for documents whether they are created electronically or printed, they want to help customers with print stream management, forms, email, archiving of documents (electronic and paper), they also want to provide consulting to help businesses increase efficiencies, provide easier work flows and reduce your costs.

more to come with Part 3

-=Good Selling=-

Can Multifunctional Copiers or Printers be Infected with Malware?

Multifunctional Copiers or Printers be Infected with a Malware?

My first thought was….. this is AWESOME! 

Finally all of those tree huggers than complain about the world’s most re-usable resource (paper) may be affected by this new malware infection.  My second thought was, how can I get a hold of this and get this malware to all those rotten people out there that have hung up on me, not called me back (ever), or went with a cheap price!  Can we all remember this one, “the thought of a cheap price is long forgotten after poor service”. 

This also reminds me of the early days of faxing; this is when all plain paper/thermal fax machines were using roll paper.  Guys in the office would send an endless fax to a business that either ticked them off.  The trick was to take and original document, place it in the feeder of the fax machine and then roll the original and the tape the end of the sheet of paper to the front.  The result is that you would have a rolled original document that would be an endless loop.  You would then dial the fax number, press the start key and the document would be set to endless scan.  The result on the receiving machine is that it would continue to print until the roll of paper ran out!  I can remember that some of the paper rolls lengths were 500 feet.  Can you im agine walking in the office in the AM and seeing 500 feet of fax paper all over the floor, or sitting at your desk and just seeing the fax keep printing for hours!

Luckily there was no caller ID then, and one of our guys in the office got caught because he forgot to clear out the sender TTI, this actually told the customer where the document was being transmitted from.  It was not the professional thing to do, however some customers did deserve payback!

With this current malware named Trojan.Milicenso, the infected PC will print out pages of garbled data to the connected printer.  The article I read also indicated that this virus was most prevalent in the US, Europe and India.

The garbled pages of data reminds me of when I first started with installing print drivers, seems when I installed the wrong the print driver and then selected a file to print, we would then get pages and pages of garbled data and the only way to stop it was to turn the printer or multifunctional copier off!

So, can multifunctional copiers become infected with a virus? After doing a Google search and scanning through the first ten pages I came up with nothing. I’m thinking it may have something to do with Operating Systems that multifunctional copiers use that would make them less susceptible to viruses.

If anyone has any additional information on this I’d love to hear about it.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP's can now Scan2Fax with UDOCX

I aways enjoy enlighting my customers and others with the latest technology.  If you're like me and you're in the field selling MFP's.  What's a better talk track than solutions, especially when it comes to eliminating the fax machine and all of the bs charges that go with it.

Check out this awesome video frm UDOCX to "learn more"

-=Good Selling=-

Death of the Fax Machine "Finally"

I borrowed a line from Greg Walters from The Death of the Copier here.


It's my firm belief that the fax machine as we know it will cease to exist. Now, if you would have asked me three months ago, I would have told you never, ever, fax will always be here.

What's changed my mind? A few things, one I'm gonna keep to myself because I'm not sure if the person I spoke wants me to release that information to the public at this time. The other item would be emergence of "smart" MFP’s (multi functional product) that are capable of communicating to the "cloud".

In my way of selling and I'm always thinking about how to reduce a clients cost and how to get an immediate ROI so a decision can be made in a timely manner.

Here's my thinking with faxing when it comes to existing MFP's. Let's say I'm on an appointment for a new SMB (small to medium business) account, one of their requirements is that they need a fax option on the MFP. Depending on the cost of the MFP would also dictate the cost of the fax option. Most faxes for me are in between $995 & $1,375. We’ll take the middle of the road at $1,200; putting this on a 36 month lease we’d have a payment of $35.52 plus tax for a total of $38 even.

Since most fax lines in SMB accounts are dedicated and not VOIP (Voice over IP), typically the cost of the line, dialing plan, Federal Excise Tax, State Tax and other BS fees. An average fax line can cost $45-$78 (Verizon came in a $78 with unlimited local and long distance) per month. Here’s an interesting fact I found out when researching the “additional charges”, the Federal Excise Tax was passed in 1898 to fund the Spanish American War, and it’s not gone away. World War I saw the establishment of the Long Distance Tax and World War II saw in an increase in both Taxes and they’ve never gone away!!!

So, if you’re going to add a fax option to an MFP you have the monthly cost of the fax module at $38 and let’s call the monthly fee to have the line with $55.00. I think I’m being fair in calculating a total cost of $93 per month.

Let’s move onto a “smart” MFP, which is any MFP that can communicate through its browser with Cloud Services. The one that I have in mind is Fenestrae UDOCX Fax application. I’m mentioning them because I’m more familiar with that product than any other and at this time I don’t know of any other Cloud based Fax Solution.

The cost to buy the UDOCX fax application is $30 per month. For the $30 per month you don’t need the fax module for the MFP and you can do away with the fax line, thus a savings of $68 per month! Plus there’s a heck of a lot of additional features that are offered that can help improve any companies efficiencies. If you’re the Big Brother type and you want to see all inbound and outbound faxes, or send faxes and have notifications in your mailbox, then you’re in luck.

The main point I’m trying to make is that in today’s economy more clients want simple cost saving solutions. If you’re on the cutting edge of selling solutions, you can take this information and solution to bank. You won’t have to discount your hardware because you’re already $2,400 or so less the competition with a “smart” MFP Fax based Cloud Solution. So, I ask you who’s gonna get the sale, the rep with pick axe or the rep with the jackhammer?

There was a post on the Print4Pay Hotel forums many years ago, in the thread was this statement “Peter Drucker says, "Every business needs to prepare for the total abandonment of everything that it does."

Lastly, I had a conversation with someone today who spoke with a manufacturers rep and something to this effect was said “Why would we do this, we’ll lose all of our fax module revenue”. Pretty dumb huh?

Sell cost savings solutions, find ways to give a client and immediate ROI without sacrificing service, or productivity and increase their efficiencies, it’s a no brainer!!!

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Canon "TWIC Notes"

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places for posting these great threads

Canon announced a new option for its imageRUNNER MFPs that have the MEAP platform for embedded applications.

Details:
o FACSys Connector from emFAST Inc.
o Works with FACSys fax servers
o Can route content either to fax numbers or to many popular content management systems
o Ensures that all fax transmissions are captured and recorded with audit logs and images stored for retrieval

- Canon announced it won a “Center of Excellence” award for customer service from PC Magazine, related to its consumer digital cameras and desktop printers.

-=Good Selling=-

The History of Fax According to Art

Go ahead, you can do it, no one will see you. It's ok to hug your fax.

Facsimile "make similar", "make a copy" was invented in 1843 by Scottish mechanic and inventor Alexander Bain. He received a British patent for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs”, and the fax was born, well not entirely.

Alexander Bain's fax machine transmitter scanned a flat metal surface using a stylus mounted on a pendulum. The stylus picked up images from the metal surface. An amateur clock maker, Alexander Bain combined parts from clock mechanisms together with telegraph machines to invent his fax machine.

I can remember one of the main applications for fax was that of military use, when we demonstrated the technology we also spoke of how it was first used by the military. In fact the military adopted faxing in 1943 to transmit maps, orders and weather charts during World War II.

It was not until 1948 that the FCC authorized commercial use of fax technology, Western Union then manufactured 50,000 Deskfax machines for use at their offices.The first users of facsimile were newspapers to transmit and receive photos from around the world. The next user of facsimile were the weather services around the world.

Sixty years have passed since Western Union created the Deskfax. Remember these words, fax is dead, there's no need for fax when you have email. I'll admit that email has taken some of the fax machines popularity away, however there is still some type of fax in every office, whether its a stand alone product, a modem in a pc or a modem in multifunctional copy machine.

What would we have done in the eighties with out the fax? Any of you remember the Teli Vaxafax (made in Sweden)

I can remember some funny stories about faxing. Back in the Eighties, selling copiers we always ran across a rude "gate keeper" when we were telemarketing for copiers. Now, one of the quickest ways to get information to a customer was to "fax" a brochure, sometimes we had a fax number and sometimes we did not. However, it was not wise to be rude on the phone if we had your fax number. On a few occasions we would get the number of the fax machine from someone who was rude or hung up on us. We would then take a few sheets of letter paper and tape them together to make a long document, in most cases it was three sheets taped together. We would then dial the number, press the start key, once the paper started to feed (you had to remember that the early fax machines were very slow) we would then create a loop in the paper taping the end of the document to the beginning. Well, that's all it took, we would then let the fax do its work. What happened at the other end was that the fax would continue to receive the transmission until either the machine ran out of paper or the fax was turned off.

Well, it was funny back in the Eighties.

-=Good Selling=-