On Fri, 6 May 2011 19:50:47 +0200 Polytropon <free...@edvax.de> articulated:
> On Fri, 6 May 2011 10:30:58 -0700, David Brodbeck <g...@gull.us> > wrote: > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 3:47 AM, Bill Tillman <btillma...@yahoo.com> > > wrote: > > Believe it or not, there are industries where faxing is still the > > norm. > > Don't just think about "big industries", also keep small > businesses in mind - LOTS of them. A manager writes a > letter, prints it, faxes it to the secretary, she then > types it, prints it, and faxes it back to the manager. > In case the manager requires some changes, he phones > her, or makes annotations to her fax and faxes it back. > Then she processes the changes and faxes the result > again. On both sides, it's an inkpee fax. If it's not > used heavily enough, it will dry out. Are you joking? Why would anyone create a document, print it and then FAX it? I create documents all the time in MS Word and then FAX the document directly to the intended recipient. No printing required. And why would the manager FAX it to a secretary to be transcribed and printed then FAXed back? There are so many solutions to this that the only answer that I can conceive of in this situation is that you are describing an office environment from the 60's, unless you were just joking to begin with. > You think: Stupid! Inefficient! Expensive! Absolutely > Fully correct. And it's more the _norm_ than the exception, > at least here in Germany. > > There are enough businesses that could invest in a > computer-driven fax system (storage instead of paper, > printing if and ONLY IF required), but they are too > lazy in mind. > > > Many industrial suppliers want purchase orders by fax. > > This has to do with a legal situation in many cases. > A fax, unlike an e-mail, is often said to have a status > like "letter with receipt", so the statement: "You > did get the message." can be made from sending a fax > and applying the receipt printed by the fax machine > (sending report). > > Also printing a text, signing it, and then faxing it > makes it look "more legal". My legal signature has been scanned and stored so that I can simply add it to any document I created sans the whole wasteful printing operation, assuming that I do not require a hard copy. > > It also > > seems to be the common way that pharmacies communicate with doctors' > > offices. These are conservative industries where email (and > > especially, email attachments) are still viewed with some suspicion. It is legal in many locals in the US to FAX a prescription into a pharmacy. The same applies to many legal documents for use in courts, etcetera. I have never seen an e-mailed document accepted though. _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"