From: doug@uuisis.isis.org (Doug Thompson)
Subject: Re: Future of fax?
Organization: International Shared Information Service (Ottawa)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 02:48:48 GMT

callahan@itr.wa.com (John Callahan) writes:
> 	Fax is cheap (at least the initial purchase);

Granted: you only need to invest in a dedicated phone line and a
$400-$4000 instrument. For e-mail you need only a $100 modem and maybe
another hundred or two in software. Fax is cheap, but e-mail is much
cheaper.

> 	Fax is simple (have you ever tried to use vi?);

I have! As long as e-mail means unix mailx and vi as an editor, there is
a real barrier for relative novices. This is in fact a HUGE barrier. One
of the main 'new' things in the world is a lot better software, running
on PCs and Macs, that lets the user use whatever editor or word
processor the user is familiar with. Such software exists, and as it
spreads around the 'simplicity' issue diminishes.

But I fully grant you that *this* has been a major barrier.

> 	Fax is ubiquitous.

But e-mail is *MORE* ubiquitous. So far, not necessarily in the same
circles. What most people use for e-mail is pretty primitive and hard
for a novice to learn. But that is changing. 

A majority of mid-to-large size businesses have PC LANS or Mainframe
internal e-mail systems already, systems they are using every day for
internal memos. What they don't have is the link to the Internet that
makes their office e-mail system a part of a world-wide network but that
is changing too as the internet adds 1000 hosts per day. Most medium to
small business have PCs and most have FAX machines too. The cost (in
labour and telecom charges) of using FAX is huge.

Most all business will decide in favour of economy, all other things
being equal. More and more are doing it every day which is bringing
e-mail into the realm of 'ubiquity' which FAX has achieved. More and
more business cards and advertising promos include an e-mail address.

Again, this is a moving target, and the real question is how fast is it
moving. Slowly, but steadily, and e-mail is rapidly accelerating while
FAX is, I believe, running into its limits.

> It is the last two characteristics that give facsimile its current competitiv
> advantage.  Until networked computer systems are as simple to use as fax mach

Yes - and the fact that *EVERYBODY* knows about and understands FAX. The
vast majority of the population is still either quite clued out about
e-mail or else the information they have is very inadequate and
unrepresentative.

> and as ubiquitous as fax machines, facsimile will be with us no matter how
> eloquent the arguments proving the inefficiency of facsimile.

I haven't seen anyone suggest that FAX is going to vanish soon. You have
correctly identified the availability, simplicity and 'ubiquity' of FAX
as major market appeals. I agree. But as I watch e-mail network growth,
and as I work for companies who are ditching their unreliable and
expensive FAX machines in favour of e-mail, I see e-mail catching up to
FAX in ubiquity in this decade and overtaking it in the next. As it does
FAX becomes quickly redundant and may vanish as quickly as TELEX
vanished. Oh yeah, TELEX is still there, but can't compete with FAX on
any index. So its use has been falling precipitously. In another ten
years you might see it vanish altogether.

Technological change is always a flow, a movement, a tide. Very few new
technologies ever completely supplant their predecessors. Heck, we still
write on stone sometimes eh?

The typewriter didn't make the pen obsolete, but the computer has the
potential, in time, to make FAX obsolete by A) linking computers in the
office to a network cheaply and B) doing everything that FAX now does
more economically. Not tomorrow, for *sure*.

One thing, in terms of change, that is really important to remember is
that when micro-computers really hit the workplace in the last half of
the 80s, most of the workers who had to use them had no previous
computer experience, and application programs were often quite
primitive. Today, almost every school-leaver entering the work-force has
some computer experience, reducing the problem associated with
computer-phobia from workers. In ten years' time computer illiteracy and
computer phobia, which are major problems still and major impediments to
the use of e-mail, will be much reduced in scope. In 20 years' time the
only computer illiterate people left will be a few ageing relics in the
CEO offices. All the while, application programs and micro-computer
power get better and better.

While all this is happening, the basic network infrastructure is rapidly
developing, making e-mail more accessible, more powerful and more
economical. 

So all the changes are in the direction of e-mail. 

FAX is not really cheap. FAX is convenient and fast when compared to
postal mail. That is why business uses it. Speed and efficiency. But it
can't hold a candle to e-mail on that count among a computer literate
work-force. 

We use FAX, we use e-mail, we use the post office, we even use TELEX
from time to time. We use whatever works. But we sure *prefer* to use
e-mail wherever it is an option. And it is very rare that we use
anything else when e-mail is an option. This is employee preference. The
management didn't have to issue any 'orders' to make this happen.
Workers who need to communicate prefer to use e-mail even where FAX is
an option. Workers use FAX where e-mail is not an option.

Workers prefer to use FAX over postal mail, where possible, but use
paper mail quite happily when necessary. 

Simplicity, convenience.

Learning curves aside, e-mail is a lot more convenient than FAX. Even if
it weren't cheaper, e-mail would come to prevail over FAX in time for
that reason alone. 

=Doug

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