OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

Give fax a break already.

It’s a sad day for one of the world’s most unfairly maligned pieces of hardware. Fax machines just made No. 14 in a list of 15 Current Technologies a Child Born Today Will Never Use. The blogger, Laptop Magazine’s Online Editorial Director Avram Piltch, slotted the hapless device all the way down at No. 14, and for an already misunderstood “gadget that had its heyday in the 1970s” that’s got to hurt.

Now, to be fair, Piltch was only talking about fax machines, and he is almost certainly correct that those appliances will eventually go the way of the dodo. What he failed to mention–and what is too often overlooked–is that fax technology itself (which has already proven its value and resilience for more than a century) can look forward to many more years of usefulness and ubiquity before being forced into early retirement by younger, more attractive methods of communication……or a super-intelligent army of robots.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not the technology: people are faxing higher volumes faster than ever before, in many cases between IP addresses straight from their email client, or even automatically as preconfigured batches while they sleep. It’s the word: FAX. People can’t help but associate fax with the fax machine and a bygone era of cigarettes and leisure suits.

Facsimile or fax simply means a copy sent using voice technology. With the growing popularity and availability of Fax over IP (FoIP) , there are now dozens of ways to do this securely, even without much of a reliance on analog phone lines or fax machines. Fax servers, protocols and delivery methods are still constantly evolving and have not yet lost pace with competing communication options.

Finally, Mr. Piltch, I will not “let go of the signature requirement.” That “lame excuse for the continued use of the fax machine” is still a very compelling one for newer fax technologies. Keep in mind that fax is a simple, point-to-point transmission involving only two people (the sender and the receiver). A fax can be verifiably tracked throughout its journey between friends and is still much more secure than email or an online signature where receipt confirmation is absent. Fax is still the only transmission that won’t fall down in any court, and thousands of people even use fax to vote in federal elections. Because the basic technology of fax is so simple, it is everywhere: essentially, anyone anywhere in the world who has a phone jack has the capability to fax. This makes it ideal for doing business across industries and borders.

Every day the delusion is spreading that fax is no longer relevant, but with hundreds of millions of faxes being sent and received every single day, I just don’t buy it.

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently released information detailing data security breaches in Great Britain between March 2011 and February 2012. The report came after a Freedom of Information request by satellite manufacturer/TV broadcaster Viasat.

All businesses in the UK are bound by the Data Protection Act of 1998, which is enforced by the ICO to prevent data breaches of personally identifiable information (PII). However, the report found that while the private sector accounted for more than a third of all reported breaches (263 cases), it paid just one £1,000 fine, leaving the public sector (467 cases) with the vast majority of the £791,000 total.

Data security is a global problem, and insufficient reporting/enforcement makes incidents difficult to accurately track and, more importantly, prevent. Government agencies with a commitment to customer privacy spend a lot of money protecting data to avoid crippling fines, (the ICO levied a £140,000 fine against Midlothian Council in 2011 for repeatedly leaking personal data about children and their caregivers to the wrong recipients).

The security of protected health information (PHI) is a particular risk for healthcare institutions, and in the UK, they must comply with strict regulatory mandates not only from the Data Protection Act but also from their individual Safe Haven Policies. As a result, in the UK and around the world, the smart money is on secure document management and delivery.

The National Health Service (NHS) is the UK’s publically funded healthcare network, and its 1.7 million combined staff serve more than 62 million citizens. NHS Manchester turned to OpenText Fax Appliance for its document delivery solution. Prior to adopting a network fax approach, fax machines were spread out geographically, and security was limited to keeping fax machines in locked rooms. Now NHS Manchester employees enjoy consolidated digital document transfer and can send and receive faxes directly and securely from the desktop. All faxes are stored and routed through a central database, and retain a full audit trail recording any access or other activity. With less paper documents changing hands, the likelihood of data breaches is greatly reduced.

To learn more about Fax Appliance, click here.

To read the full NHS Manchester case study, click here.

Countless businesses use Microsoft Office 365 for everything from email and calendar services to document access and collaboration. They have already shown their smarts and thriftiness by reducing onsite hardware and software and working in the cloud. So why are some still relying on paper-based faxing and the expensive hardware, supplies and maintenance it requires? Maybe they don’t know about RightFax or Fax Appliance.

OpenText helps thousands of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) around the world manage and deliver their business-critical documents. We have dozens of integration options with the most common back-office and other applications has made it extremely attractive to people who don’t want to buy (or learn) new software. One of the most popular recent integrations is with Office 365.

By integrating Fax Appliance or RightFax with Office 365, customers enjoy immediate upfront savings, increased security, and less time shuffling back and forth between workstations and shared standalone fax machines. In cases where sensitive and/or legally binding documents are required to be sent to third parties, fax machines in public areas produce highly visible paper documents and pose a serious risk to information security – potentially resulting in hefty regulatory fines. Our solutions allow you to manage user roles and permissions and fax from your desktop to erase this threat.

We have seen significant benefits for customers who use OpenText’s rich integration with O365. These include:

• More productive employees: No more time-consuming printing, manual faxing, and tracking.

• Lower telecom, paper, and equipment costs: Consolidate phone resources for faxing and stop paying for fax paper, cartridges, and machine maintenance, eliminate costs for filing, long-term archival and manual retrieval of paper faxes.

• Less fax preparation: Any that can be printed can be faxed.

• Improved efficiency: Send higher quality communication more quickly by faxing directly from  Office 365 via Print-to-Fax or email.

• PDF routing: Route incoming faxes to  Office 365 as PDF attachments.

• MFP integration: Fax through our fax solutions without purchasing phone lines and costly fax kits for multiple MFPs.

• Improved audit, compliance, and legal readiness: Audit trails are legally recognized making it easy to provide proof of compliance.

• Document centralization: Keep all your communications in one place by using the  Office 365 email client to send and receive faxes.

• Support of green initiatives: Save trees (and money) by getting rid of a lot of paper.

That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head – basically, if you’re a SMB that uses Office 365 and also needs to fax, OpenText can help. If savings and security alone aren’t enough to pique your interest learn more about the benefits and integration listing from Fax Appliance and RightFax.

Managing excessive paper-based medical records is not for the faint of heart — especially when compliance violations can result in fines that well exceed seven figures. Healthcare organizations that employ a virtually “paperless” EMR or EHR solution may believe that they are immune to penalties but that’s simply not the case. Send a fax to the wrong person or leave a fax in whole or part at an unattended fax machine and you could be subject to costly fines. In fact, the number and amount of compliancy fines in the US is at an all-time high.

Join OpenText on April 12th at 2:00PM Eastern / 11:00AM Pacific for an educational webinar, where you will hear from security and privacy expert Rebecca Herold, AKA the Privacy Professor, and learn about the risks associated with paper-based communications and processes. During the webcast, attendees will also hear from Chris Patterson, the IT Administrator for Florida Heart and Vascular Associates, and see how they integrated an OpenText digital faxing solution to achieve HIPAA compliance, improve processes, and dramatically lower costs.

Who should attend?

• Healthcare Compliance Officers adopting new healthcare compliance initiatives
• Healthcare Professionals wanting to protect and secure patient information
• Healthcare Practice Managers seeking to improve productivity and patient care
• Healthcare Informatics roles searching for ways to improve workflow and streamline business processes

Register today!

After attending this year’s HIMSS tradeshow, I am as excited as ever about the direction healthcare is heading with regard to new information technologies. Even compared to last year’s event, I can see a real difference in the passion healthcare providers are displaying in seeking out new technologies to deliver better care and service–in particular those that can help them address security, compliance and data privacy. Yes, regulations and compliance mandates like HIPAA means a lot more accountability and a lot more work. But rather than responding to this requirement as if they are being forced to comply, the healthcare community seems eager to find the smartest IT solutions for their compliance needs. They understand that, ultimately, regulatory compliance will improve not just document security, but also patient care and even bottom line.

I attended HIMSS12 representing OpenText’s Fax and Document Distribution Group in an effort to connect with customers in need of a fax-based document management solution. HIMSS is designed to make the job of finding the right IT solutions easy, but it can be difficult to find something if you don’t know what you should be looking for. In some cases, people don’t even know that fax technology can be a viable and effective solution for them. For example, at HIMSS12, I met someone who provides consultancy services for hospitals to improve their process workflows, and she said it had never occurred to her that fax could solve problems for her clients. Further discussions with her saw her realize that OpenText fax solutions can help quite a few of her clients increase efficiency and productivity, reduce costs and enhance the service they offer their customers. It felt great to help her, and it was a welcome reminder that trusted fax technology continues to play a pivotal role in the healthcare marketplace.

It was heartening to see a vibrant healthcare IT dialogue at play, and I look forward to attending next year.

This year’s HIMSS tradeshow in Las Vegas brought together individuals from all corners of the healthcare IT marketplace. I attended representing OpenText’s Fax & Document Distribution Group—the leader in the fax server industry–with more than 10,000 installations in hospitals and clinics worldwide. I found it to be a great opportunity to connect with existing partners and customers as well as those HIT vendors who  do not yet have, or who are looking for a replacement for an existing document distribution solution to automate inbound and outbound fax communications from their applications.

Based on my discussions with numerous technology providers at the show, it is clear that fax is still a ubiquitous document exchange platform across the healthcare industry. Fax servers will continue to play a role in healthcare communications for the foreseeable future, even as the industry/government drives toward a fully electronic Health Information Exchange (HIE) framework. The reason for this is that fax remains the lowest common denominator for secure information sharing amongst healthcare providers, whether for a small physician practice, a large 100+ bed hospital, or anyone in between.

This was my second year attending HIMSS, and I am glad I came back. If you are developing or offering a solution for the healthcare IT market, you have to be there. I attend both to expand relationships with existing partners and to generate new business by identifying ISVs who might benefit from a fax server solution. Everyone I needed to see was there, from IT staff and business decision makers to physicians and other healthcare professionals, all providing their unique perspectives on the challenges and opportunities they see ahead in this time of rapid change within the healthcare sector.

Having everyone together at one venue makes it easy to connect with all stakeholders in the healthcare IT marketplace. The annual HIMSS show is an ideal place to do just that. Mark it on your calendar!

The use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is becoming increasingly popular in everyday business. Mobile devices are used in virtually every industry and have become an integral element of core business processes. Let’s look at the three major ways in which mobility trends impact organizations:

1. Mobile devices use a wide range of differing operating systems

2. Employees are bringing their own devices into the workplace, driving the need for enterprise-grade Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) strategies

3. Consumer applications are mobile, and employees expect business apps to follow

Gartner predicts that by 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal mobile devices . In line with these trends, the need for mobile access to RightFax has become a priority. To this end, OpenText teamed up with Cortado, a leading provider of virtual desktop technology.

Cortado Corporate Server
Integrating mobile devices into corporate IT structures poses a challenge to administrators because of the wide variety of devices and their varying operating systems and security features. Cortado Corporate Server provides users with the solution to accommodating different mobile platforms: it gives employees with smartphones and tablet PCs secure access to corporate network resources and allows them to use traditional desktop functions while on the go, just as if they were at their workstation in the office. Users can access files and information on the corporate network at any time with their mobile devices, and either print directly to the nearest printer or send documents via fax. On the backend, the Cortado Corporate Server acts as a mobile device management system and allows secure management of users, profiles, and policies.

Cortado Connector for RightFax
The Cortado Connector for RightFax simply integrates RightFax with the Cortado Corporate Server. This module is the interface between Cortado Corporate Server and RightFax. Utilizing the Cortado software, the module will pick up the Cortado application output files and send them out through the RightFax server. Most common file formats in Windows environments are supported. Fax status reports must be configured within RightFax and can be sent to the fax sender’s mailbox.

Description of the RightFax – Cortado Integration
Cortado Corporate Server’s integration with RightFax allows users with a mobile device or tablet to send documents via fax either from within the office environment or remotely. Cortado enables those documents to be retrieved from a file-share on the organization’s local network or from the local device itself. This overcomes security and compliance issues customers face when they are, for example, out of the office and trying to send a document via fax, but are unable to use the organization’s central RightFax server.

The Result
Cortado Corporate Server and RightFax work together to offer customers numerous benefits:

• Fax documents from a mobile device with ease

• Send any document as a fax – whether from the corporate network, local directories on the device, or as an attachment from an email program

• Trigger and fax up-to-date database reports

• Reduce data traffic by eliminating download of centrally-stored files

• Create fax documents on the fly on your smartphone or tablet PC

• Receive fax status notifications on the device

For organizations, the result of the RightFax and Cortado Corporate Server integration is a solution that brings a reduction in cost and IT administration, while simultaneously increasing productivity, security, and compliance.

RightFax & Cortado: The right fax solution for every BYOD strategy!

Martin van Ginkel
Strategic Alliances Manager EMEA
OpenText Corporation

One of my goals each year for the last few years has been to create videos about our products. I really enjoy doing this, but it’s not always clear how our customers consume those videos. We can’t see if they like the video, or drop off after a few minutes. We can’t really control what our YouTube presence looks like or how to organize the videos beyond a certain level. And we have plenty of customers who just cannot see the videos at all, either because the corporate firewall blocks it or because they live in a country that forbids access to YouTube.

So we decided to come up with another solution that solves those problems. FaxDocs.tv is that new solution. It is a single site you can go to and watch all of the latest videos from our group. You can easily find all of the videos relating to each of our main product areas, as well as those targeting different audiences. We will create special pages as needed with pre-programmed playlists for topics like RightFax Fundamentals, etc.

At first (and for the foreseeable future) we will be cross-posting on YouTube and on FaxDocs.tv, but we expect most people will choose to view the videos on FaxDocs.

I hope you like the new FaxDocs.tv website. If you have any comments or suggestions on how to improve the site, share them with us here on the blog.

Question #8: Where can I find good FoIP technical resources?

One of the most respected names and leading authorities on FoIP is Cisco’s David Hanes. These links provide neutral information on FoIP:

• Implementing Fax over IP
• The Emergence of T.38 as the De Fact Standard for FoIP
• Facebook Forum Summary – Fax Over IP (FoIP) Basics, Design and Best Practices 

Question #9: Who is the Market Leader in FoIP?

We don’t mean to toot our own horn, but OpenText is the world leader of FoIP as well as traditional fax servers (source: Davidson Consulting).   Frost and Sullivan, in their November 2010 Enterprise Fax Market Report, announced that OpenText is the fax server market share leader by almost double its nearest competitor.

OpenText RightFax has been successfully deployed across multiple IP networks and SIP trunks. RightFax 10 (released in June of 2011), has many feature enhancements which will assist you with your FoIP deployments. RightFax is also much more than fax. Embedded as part of RightFax is a secure document delivery solution called SecureDocs that allows you to send and track almost any file type securely.

Question #9 and 1/2: Where can I go to discuss FoIP with the experts?

Don’t miss your chance to hear from two of the industry’s leading experts on FoIP: David Hanes; Gonzalo Salgueiro from Cisco – two guys who literally wrote the book on FoIP. Join David and Gonzalo on November 10^th for an educational webinar that will Explore the Roadmap of SIP Trunking for FoIP. You can also view a recording of a recent joint webinar by OpenText and Dialogic Take the Mystery out of SIP Trunking.

Matthew Brine, General Manager
Fax and Document Distribution Group
OpenText Corporation

Joshua Butcher, Senior Technical Instructor
Fax and Document Distribution Group
OpenText Corporation

Question #6: What are fax gateways used for?

You can leverage all the benefits and cost advantages of FoIP without a VoIP infrastructure with a fax gateway. A fax gateway allows for scalability and flexibility of the current state by giving an organization the control of integrating or not, into current or future network infrastructure. This may be relevant if you are planning on upgrading your existing fax server or purchasing a fax server and our planning a VoIP implementation in the future. For more information about the value of leveraging a fax gateway see the whitepapers and datasheets at http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/fax-gateway-for-foip.aspx.

Question #7: What is SIP Trunking?

Many companies have started using or are considering a SIP trunk to connect their PBX to the global telephone system infrastructure (PSTN) via the Internet. Unfortunately, not all SIP trunk providers support faxing through their SIP trunks even though many claim they do. Before making a decision to go to a SIP trunk, you will want to be sure to determine exactly which FoIP protocol is supported so that you can decide whether the solution is best for your fax traffic demands. Theblogs  below will provide more information on SIP trunking and its impact on faxing:

• SIP Trunking: Part 1 – Introduction to SIP Trunking
• SIP Trunking: Part 2 – Faxing and SIP Trunking  
• SIP Trunking: Part 3 – Faxing and SIP Trunking, a more complex scenario discussion

The final installment will be posted Wednesday, November 9th.