The Commetrex Outlook | March 2010

New CEO Commentary: He Doesn’t Usually Boast, But…

In his latest CEO Commentary, Mike Coffee boasts that Commetrex leads the industry in fax-technology innovation. “How can that be?” you say. “What about the industry’s volume leader?” Well, innovation is one thing, establishing a strong market position over 30 years of consolidation is another. Coffee counts Commetrex’ new SIP-T.38 technology as its latest innovation. He claims that fax servers that only support T.38 have an outbound fax-call completion rate that is at least five-percent lower than BladeWare equipped with T.38 and G.711 pass-through support with Commetrex’ patent-applied-for “Smart FoIP™” technology.

Check out his CEO Commentary to see whether you agree with his claims. And there’s more information on our Blog.

Finally! We’ve Eaten Our Own Dog Food

Pssstt! Wanna really good V.34 fax board at a great price? Commetrex has it. If you’ve been reading the Commetrex Outlook, you know we’ve added support for PCI and PCI Express boards. And now we’ve integrated our globally deployed V.34 fax into BladeWare, and you can take advantage of this great technology at a great price.

A two-port analog board is only $272.00. 8 port? Just $652.00. And an E1/T1 with ISDN PRI is only $497.00. That’s the hardware. Software is nominally $94.00 per port. But if you want to jump in on our beta, we’re waiving the software fee for a limited time. If you’re a current BladeWare developer, you’ll need to license the MSP SDK for $500. If you’re not a BladeWare developer, additional SDK fees are required.

Want to learn more? Drop us a line or give us a call: sales@commetrex.com or 1-770-449-7775 and press 1 for sales.

Commetrex Has Birthed A Blog!

Have you checked out our new blog, Mike’s Musings? There’s a link on our homepage. If you want to stay abreast of the latest in fax technology, we’ve made it easy. All you need to do is follow our postings. Just click on “Follow” and take it from there.

Our featured blogger is Mike Coffee, Commetrex’ CEO. Mike has been in the thick of fax-technology for the last 18 years, and he’s picked up a few things along the way, and, being irrepressible, is determined to share them with you.

Here are some of his latest posts:

The Long-Fax- Failure Problem Revealed!
The Slow-Network-Signaling Problem Revealed!
I Confess I’m a Stickler
Another Long Tail?
What is Experience Worth?

EmFAST Is Making Network-Based Faxing Easier

emFAST, an enterprise-fax OEM that has used BladeWare for two years, is now shipping its EZ Fax Gateway product based on the BladeWare HMP fax server with SIP and T.38 support.

The FACSys(r) EZ Fax Gateway appliance allows any user on the enterprise network to send and receive faxes through a desktop client, browser, e-mail interface, MFP device or a fax-enabled application, providing a cost-effective and cost-saving fax messaging solution for an office environment. Although the product is price competitive with other fax-server appliances, emFAST reports that since it is based on the FACSys Foundation product, it is functionally extensible to include full enterprise-class features such as connectors for Blackberry Print-to-Fax, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Sharepoint.

FACSys(r) EZ is available in two versions: FACSys(r) EZ FoIP, which connects directly to IP networks that support the T.38 fax-over-IP protocol and FACSys(r) EZ Analog, which uses an included IP-to-PSTN gateway.

Who Needs FXS Fax Boards?

“No search results for FXS fax board”. Wow! Can you believe it? Apparently, other than Commetrex’ MSP FX/S, there are no fax boards you can plug into a PCI or PCI Express slot that will support the direct connection of a legacy fax machine to the computer. But what about all those fax machines sitting around after a business acquires a fax server? What does the fax-server vendor that does not use Commetrex fax technology say when the prospect asks the inevitable question, “What about my fax machines”? Can I still use them?”

Well, the answer is that if they aren’t decommissioned, the business continues to bear the expense of having those machines connected to the PSTN via a PBX or by a direct line to the PSTN at nearly $40.00 per month. “Just call your own fax number from the machine, says the fax-server salesman, and our server will receive it. You will then be able to treat it as any image file.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way. With the BladeWare MSP FX/S boards, the user can send a fax to the server where it can be archived for compliance or other reasons and sent to the original dialed number without any further action by the user. Alternatively, the user can use the server’s features to add a cover page and even edit the fax before it’s sent on its way. Then there’s least-cost-routing using BladeWare’s in-development relay capability. But we’ll have to tell you about that later.

Want to learn more about Commetrex’ MSP boards? Shoot us an e-mail at sales@commetrex.com.

Commetrex’ Tom Ray Interviewed By TMCnet.Com

Commetrex’ EVP, Sales & Marketing, Tom Ray, was recently interviewed by TMCnet.com for their IP Telephony Community channel. The interview was about how Commetrex’ burgeoning relationship with Sangoma Technologies is changing the landscape for enterprise fax OEMs. Tom points out that the combination of Sangoma’s unrivaled line of PCI and PCI Express analog and digital PSTN-interface boards, when combined with BladeWare, our HMP media server with T.38 and V.34 support, suddenly gives the Commetrex fax-server OEM the industry’s broadest market coverage.

Tom sums up the relationship like this, “we believe the combination of Commetrex’s BladeWare technology in concert with the Sangoma product line and the overall price-performance make this a compelling solution for the enterprise fax OEM.”

To read the entire interview, check it out at TMCnet.