On 21/07/07, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
> I'd like to think that faxes have had their day, and could be replaced
> by scanners and email.
I very much disagree. The print quality of faxes is shocking, but they
are protected by privacy laws (pertaining to the telephone system) and
are reasonably secure. Emails are postcards, not protected (there are no
laws for the Internet!), not encrypted, go around half the world and can
be read by anyone in between. I only have a limited interest in having
my financial affairs conducted for the entertainment of every sysadmin
or computer user who received it because some Redmond Exchange went
bananas.
I would add to that : Real Time vs Store & Forward
A fax is real time. As soon as the transmission successfully completes
the receiving device sends an "OK". If the transmission fails, you get
immediate feedback.
Not so with email, where you'll never know if the email was silently
dropped by any of the MTAs between you and your intended recipient, or
if it was silently deleted by their mail client or spam filter.
Yuri
