business

"Fax is easier and more reliable than e-mail, and it's ubiquitous -- everybody knows what a fax machine is."

It's only easier if you have a fax machine — and most people don't. It's definitely not more reliable, since you're at the mercy of the quality of your connection at any given moment. The slightest amount of static or loss of signal quality can cause your connection to drop, thus making you have to try sending it again.

For those who don't have a fax machine, faxing from your computer is an excellent choice, and if your fax is two pages or less, you can do it free of charge.

Emailing documents, whether they be image files or a PDF file is also much easier, and contrary to the claim that it's easier for hackers to intercept them, that's not the case. Man-in-the-middle attacks are easily detected, and since no hacker can know the route any email will take to get to it's final destination, the only way to guarantee interception is to attack between you and your ISP. Since your ISP monitors their network continuously, the chances for success are extremely remote. Even if they were successful, these emails can be encrypted for privacy, which makes it ideal for complying with federal privacy laws for various industries, and impossible for any hacker to decrypt.

E-mail doesn't give confirmation of delivery unless both sender and recipient use the same special software.

That's just crazy talk; there is no "special software" required. All you have to do is use an email client that supports sending and receiving Read Receipts, and have it enabled.

"Of course, there's one downside to sending a fax: It isn't free like some e-mail. Lothrop said The Fax Guys charge a $20,000 one-time software license fee and a recurring $4,000 annual software maintenance fee for a fax server that can handle as many as 4,000 fax pages during an eight-hour day. But The Fax Guys say the cost amounts to pennies per message." What? E-mail isn't free. You need an internet connection... unless you have a free internet connection. No different than fax where you need a phone connection or fax service somewhere. Maybe you have a free one of those, too. But you can have a reliable high-volume fax server for MUCH less than $20K and $4K annually. Is this news or a sales pitch?