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The future of fax in converging data and voice networks

Many companies are currently either implementing or considering projects to converge data and voice networks. With “Voice over IP” (VoIP) a mature technology is available for this purpose form several suppliers, and the benefits of this approach are obvious including significant cost reductions with regard to hardware, software, maintenance and administration.

At the same time fax remains an important media for business communication but is still transmitted and received through the traditional telephone network. Sooner or later a question pops up in most companies migrating voice to IP but who have significant fax traffic: “Do we really have to keep this island of phone lines, PABX, fax machines and fax boards for the fax service?”

The answer to this question is definitely – “no”. With MessagePlus/Open you can seamlessly migrate your fax traffic to an IP based infrastructure avoiding any migration risks. Based on the T.38 protocol for Fax over IP in real-time, MessagePlus/Open provides the same degree of reliability and scalability for Fax over IP as you are used to having with traditional phone lines. The MessagePlus/Open Fax over IP solution is compatible with all  T.38 – T.30 gateways and systems such as CISCO Unified Communication Manager, Avaya Communication Manager, Nortel Communication Server and others.

Fax over IP with MessagePlus/Open does not require fax boards anymore. It is a pure software based solution communicating through a standard TCP/IP connection. Beside the savings you realize, a major benefit of this solution is that you can deploy the complete system in virtualized environments – something that has not been possible as long as special fax hardware was required. You can find more information about Fax over IP and the MessagePlus/Open implementation of this protocol in the following document.

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MessagePlus/Open V4 Release 3 general available

MessagePlus/Open V4 Release 3 is now general available with several new features and significant enhancements including the following:

64 bit version
MessagePlus/Open is available as 64 bit application for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, AIX and Solaris. A Linux version is planned. Distributed installations with components running on 64 and 32 bit servers are possible.

Web Service for message creation
A new message creation web service is provided in order to expand the possibilities to send faxes and receive status information in SOA oriented environments including a broad set of optional parameters. The results of such a transmission order can be obtained by a ”GetStatus” operation.

Database Gateway supports transmission orders and MSSQL
The MessagePlus/Open database gateway has always been able to retrieve the results of transmissions (transmission reports) generated by other integration modules. Now in addition it is possible to generate transmission orders through this gateway.  Microsoft SQL Server is now supported as well as DB2 and Oracle for the database gateway.

LDAP UPM Synchronization
The LDAP UPM Synchronizer is a tool to synchronize the MessagePlus/Open User Profile Management with external directories via the LDAP protocol. Attributes of the external directory can be flexibly mapped to properties of MessagePlus/Open users. The tool can be scheduled to run at predefined times to automatically update the MessagePlus/Open UPM e.g. once a day.

Single Sign On with Windows credentials
With the single sign-on feature it is possible for a user to only log in once at his Windows domain and gain access to the MessagePlus/Open Web-Client automatically without a separate login procedure.

Scheduled message processing
Application queues may now have a status “Started” or “Stopped” which can be controlled manually or by an automatic schedule. For a “Stopped” queue processing will be halted until the queue is started again either manually or automatically.

MPO Transfer enhancements
The migration of data from one MessagePlus/Open instance to a second system (e.g. from a test to a production system) has been enhanced by an additional migration option of the “MPO transfer” tool.

GUI performance enhancements
Database optimizations have been implemented to accelerate access to message journals and application queues under various filter criteria.

If you need  more information about MessagePlus/Open V4R3 please contact support@intercope.com.

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SWIFT removes support for telex, fax and testkey

SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) was founded back in 1973 with the objective of developing a modern communications system as an alternative to telex which had been used for financial transactions up to this time. As of today this objective has been achieved to a high degree and in consequence SWIFT is removing telex, testkey and fax functionality in the latest version 7.0 of SWIFT Alliance Access and Entry (SAA) which will be available at the end of 2010.

However, not all financial institutions are in the position to completely abandon telex and fax communication, and testkey security for financial message transfer. In particular in Africa and some Asian countries trading partners not reachable by SWIFT still rely on telex communication and testkey is also used to secure messages sent in other formats such as faxes. So what is the best thing to do if you still need telex, fax or testkey, but your SWIFT Alliance solution no longer supports these features?

Intercope has been providing telex, fax and testkey solutions for the financial industry for more than 25 years, and also developed the shortly to be discontinued telex, fax and testkey functions of SWIFT Alliance. The current versions of INTERCOPE’s “TelexPlus/Open” and “TestPlus/Open” are modern solutions supporting all telex and testkey requirement for the financial industry and in addition „MessagePlus/Open“ also provides these features and comprehensive fax functionality. “INTERCOPE is fully committed to preserving the telex, fax and testkey investments of each SAA user and to providing the most cost effective way to ensure business continuity in those areas where traffic, whilst lighter in volume, retains a strategic importance” states Reinhart Laumer, President and CEO of INTERCOPE GmbH.

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Longterm commitment to fax

Fax server marketplace trends
The fax server market is in a consolidation phase and growth rates of server systems have declined in recent years. This is despite the fact that fax continues to be an essential component in many critical business processes. Fax has many advantages given its real-time nature, the difficulty of interception and the simplicity of fax devices. Several traditional providers of fax solutions have accepted the stabilisation of the marketplace and decided to concentrate their corporate strategy and main growth efforts on other business lines. Others have become part of larger Enterprise Content Management and Data Capture companies for which the fax business is at best of minor interest to their corporate strategy and revenue. This consolidation and reduction in interest by major players is a process that is expected to continue

Ongoing investment and modernization
As a long established, privately owned independent company not influenced by the stock market and private equity crises INTERCOPE is committed vis-à-vis our current and future customers to making ongoing investments in the Fax market segment and to offering a solution utilising the latest technology standards and providing high availability options and high quality 24/7 support.

Highly attractive trade-in options
Envisaging and recognising the changes taking place in the traditional fax server market INTERCOPE is offering highly attractive trade-in options for current users of the increasing number of fax solutions which are no longer seen as strategic by their vendors. These options help companies to protect investments and at the same time remove some of the risks associated with products whose future is no longer certain.

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