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Faxes are "rubbish"? Not a bit of it...
Turns out you still love the old hunk of junk...

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Friday 06 September 2002

We said the fax has had it's day - we even thought we had some facts to back up our sensationalist headline - but it turns out we were wide of the mark (http://www.silicon.com/a55380 ).

You all rallied behind the trusty fax machine and have informed us that it is still performing an admirably vital role in the working of the modern office.

Here's a selection of your comments:

Fax is essential at times:
By Jerry Brockway

There are times when I must send information, primarily text, to a client or vendor who has no email, or computers online. Often I must send at night, or during the day when client is out of town on trips.

When financial data is being sent, hard copy insures that your data was accurate, a guarantee not always possible when using telephone.

Still has its uses:
By Bernard Gore

I want to send an original document, or a picture or plan or other image. My options are 1. Stick it in the fax machine, or 2. Find a scanner (still uncommon in many office environments), scan it in, find out what file formats the recipient can use or would prefer, save it in that format, transfer it from wherever the scanner was to somewhere where I can attach it to an email, send it out through firewalls and other security systems that are increasingly intolerant of anything other than plain text attached to emails.

So has fax had its day? Not yet!

Try buying a house without it...
By Anthony Freeth

To get the contractual equivalent of a fax signature, I need to exchange digital certificates, have both parties register with a third party, put in biometric security methods to make sure that no-one is using my signature, and then of course, it won't really work in Civil Law countries.

Tell you what, try buying your next house by email.

Think of a world without any faxes
By Felipe Borrero

Think for a moment that you don't have a fax in your office. I am sure most of us will find it useful and start wishing you had one to send that important document to someone else.

You don't realise the value of things until you lose it.

Couldn't live without it...
By Anne-Marie Peters

At the end of the day a fax machine may not be `top of the pops` for tech people but in real life our business needs one in the office. How else would we send that document that arrived in the post and needs signing and sending today?