A Career Limiting Move?

THIS SITE WILL GO AWAY SOON. PLEASE UPDATE YOUR LINKS TO THE NEW FAX BLOG : FaxSolutionsBlog.OpenText.com

Seven years ago I was a confident and utterly bored Microsoft jock who was eager to break-free from the world of Microsoft-based computing and explore the wizard-less and GUI-free technologies that occupied the other side of the IT universe. My first step onto the other side was job at Captaris (Now OpenText) where I was hired to provide technical support for a product called RightFax (now known as Fax Server). Many of the products and technologies that RightFax integrated with (e.g., Lotus, Novell, and telephony), were for the most part, new to me and of great personal interest. However, despite my interest and eagerness to learn, I must admit that for a brief time I questioned whether trading the green fields of Microsoft for a seemingly decrepit technology (fax) was a wise career move. I mean, the most of us know that fax is on the fast track to extinction, right?

Endeavor to Persevere

The term facsimile (i.e., fax) is derived from the Latin phrase fac simile, which when loosely translated means to, ‘make a copy’. The advent of fax is traced to the year 1843 when the world’s first fax transmission took place. While the technology and protocols have changed many times since that first fax, its fundamental concept of capturing, encoding, transmitting, and receiving viable copies of documents and data remain and thus make it one of the world’s most popular (and secure) means of document delivery.

Although fax has many benefits, none are perhaps more important than its classification as a legal document. Simply put, signed documents (e.g., mortgage contracts) that are transmitted via fax are considered by most countries to be legally binding whereas documents received via e-mail are typically not. Moreover, fax provides a simple and effective means of achieving compliance with industry standards and regulatory mandates, such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Organizations that typically employ fax to deliver legal, contractual, or otherwise sensitive material include:

• Financial institutions
• Insurance companies
• Health organizations
• Government offices
• Law firms

In the coming months, my colleagues and I will use this blog to elaborate on this and other topics that help make fax an enduring and ever-evolving technology.