Looking for Fax Server software..would like your recomendations

[mlchris2]

I have been asked to find a fax server software solution for our environment.

We presently are using Efax and are just recieving them at a specified email address. My corp environment has 30 end-users running POP3 email using Outlook 2003, however we are moving to Exchange shortly.

We have 25-30 clients that fax us multipage (10+) documents to our Efax fax #'s.We have 2000 other clients that fax multipage (2-5) to a manual fax machine. We also fax manually to both parties.

I dont have any specs as far as what I am looking for other than, it needs to be capable of running multiple lines, run on a Windows 2003 server platform, have great technical support and fairly inexpensive (1200-2000) for a 50 user/corp license.

I would like to hear what all of you are using and what you like and what you dont like about that product.

thanks


Mark C.
Network Admin - Digital Draw Network

 

[Bedpan]

I dug around with fairly similiar requirements not to long ago and ended up going with FaxMaker from GFI. You can get a 60 day trial from them (usually 2 or 3 times) so its easy to test out and make sure it fits your requirements.

The software is pretty straight forward. It can tie in with email (email to fax), or as a printer (print to fax) which is how we use it.

GFI tech support overall I would rate high. We have a couple products from them (MailEssentials and FaxMaker). They have been quick to respond to emails, hold time is short and I love there online chat function to talk with tech support. I would warn however if it falls outside of there normal scope of problems it can take a while longer to get resolution.

Hope this helps.

Mike

 

[MadanB]

Take a look at Venali. Excellent company on the rise and their rates are great compared to eFax.

http://www.venali.com/

many large scale corp.'s are switching to them now. I chose them over RightFax and in the process of converting.

 

[mlchris2]

Thanks bedpan...

I really was impressed with GFI because of their integration with Exchange. We will be mostly doing Fax to Email and a little Print/Email to fax.

Its good to know their tech support is excellent. I think anyone with a issue that falls out of their scope of support will need a bit longer than average to resolve. I know I do in that situation.

I think I am going to demo some products and see what is best for our environment.

We are currently using eFax and we dont want a "Hosted" solution, as we recieve 600-500 faxes everyday and at .6-10 cents a fax, it starts to add up. I can pay for Hardware and software in 2 months time by not using the eFax service.....Although, now I have to manage it....

Mark C.
Network Admin - Digital Draw Network

 

[ntinlin]

We use Omtool Genifax.

While it's pretty powerful it is a pig to set up because they don't provide much documentation, i.e. you can't really do it yourself. They normally expect you to pay extra for consultancy to do the install.

Exchange integration is very good.

I must say that when I have run into problems the tech support has been excellent.

Another option you might want to look at is Castelle FaxPress. This is a hardware and software solution that doesn't need a Windows server. They've been around a long time.

Neill

 

[paulovey]

Just to add my voice to this one. Like Bedpan I have used and can recommend GFI Faxmaker.

Not so impressed with the tech support they have given us in the past. There normal answer seems to be "upgrade to the newest version".

But on the whole a very good, stable product.

Paul


If aint broken, dont try n fix it!!!!!

 

[compuveg]

We're using GFI Faxmaker, too. I love it, the users love it, and the hardware loves it.

For the longest time we used a product called Faxware. This was a Netware app, and always worked incredibly poorly. It evolved to the GWFax product, from the Messaging Architects.

I tried it, and it ran just as poorly as the Netware version of it 5 years ago. When we migrated to GFI Faxmaker, we still had problems every month or so where the server just hung and had to be rebooted, but things were better.

In troubleshooting, GFI's support kept recommending Brooktrout modem boards. We finally ponied up the cash and got some Brooktrouts. It has been running wonderfully since then.

I think the problem was the original modem, a Digi Acceleport RAS 4, was just garbage from the git-go. I've worked with Digi products in the past and they were great. My theory is that we just had a bad modem from the start and that's why all of our Fax apps worked so poorly.

Regardless, GFI Faxmaker worked better with the bad modem than any of the other packages did with the same bad modem.