There is a compelling argument that most businesses no longer require a fax machine.

The point is usually that, with the computer packages that many businesses buy from established retailers, there is usually a high-quality printer, a high-quality scanner and internet facilities that come bundled with the PC. When you combine all those facts together, it becomes possible to send any document as a scanned image, even ones that will not fit in the feeder tray of the usual fax machine, to any e-mail address in the world.

On top of that, it is easy to argue that there are far more people with e-mail addresses than there are people with fax machines!

Of course these are valid arguments. But the counter argument is that, as a business, we should always be striving to work with our customer in whatever way he or she sees fit. Yes, there are certain business areas that require faxes to be used as part of their daily operations, such as lawyers, recruitment professionals and government agencies. With these orgranizations, you have no choice.

But there are some businesses, including some very progressive and extremely large multinational conglomerates that I can think of, that like to deal with faxes. Whether this is a cultural thing, a technological thing or just out habit, if you have the ability to send and receive faxes, it makes doing business with them far easier when it comes to things like purchase orders and invoicing. In some cases, even if you can send an e-mail, the data security regulations mean that they prefer to receive faxes.

So the argument shouldn’t be about justifying why it is still necessary to have a fax machine. The argument is why businesses that complain about them haven’t found an alternative solution, especially considering all the very high-tech, hosted solutions that are available to us nowadays.