I'm looking for the ability for all users on a network to send faxes - either via a modem or if applicable via ISDN. The only product I have found so far is WAN Net's fax manager, does anyone have other suggestions?

[Macnerd]

Yes! I have an excellent suggestion. We use FaxExpress by Glenwarne (www.glenwarne.co.uk). It's a very simple, nicely featured Fax server / Client application written by a Mac Only company. The clients are purchased in sets of 5 and 10 and the server comes with 1 (or maybe 2?) clients. We have 30+ Macs running here with a G3 Fax server and 2 modems and it works admirably. It very rarely fails (about 2 crashes in 18 months and both were caused by a user trying to fax around 40 pages of 26MB TIFFS!!). The support is good (they're an English company and very friendly) and it's so simple to get to speak to an engineer there as they're not a huge corporation. You can also download a demo. I would heartily recommend the SW for anyone. I think they have Worldwide distribution too.

4Sight Fax was also available (discontinued and troublesome). FaxSTF network is a current product, but I rtried the demo and it wasn't that cool.....

Hope this helps

Matt

Matt - thank you for that, I will check it out

Alan

[pcurtner]

4-Sight Fax is available; very difficult to find any information about the status of their product on the web right now, but I managed to speak to a salesman who assured me (taken with a large grain of salt) that the product definitely has a future...

Also looked at FaxElite, but I didn't find it nearly as easy to use as 4-Sight.

I have used jfax, and it works pretty well. Sending is very simple and accomplished though the chooser. It send out the fax as an email attatchment. Many people can all send through the same account. www.jfax.com

I concur with the Glenwarne fax software comment - however I believe the software is called FaxElite (that is what ours is, anyway). It is very cost effective software, and it integrates well with our workflow. It provides confirmations and has auto fax routing (though we have not implemented it yet). We have 10 users currently.

Is there a single solution for a network of Macs & PCs? A client/server solution that has Mac and Windows clients and either a Mac or PC for the Server?

[timur]

The Keller Group (http://www.kellergroup.com/) will soon release version 4.0 of PMfax, which runs on OS/2, Windows, and Linux. They don't have a Mac client, but it is possible to fax from a Mac to their server. Unfortunately, it's not very easy, and it would probably be too much hassle. You can, at least, email faxes to the server, and it can then fax the messages for you. But that means you can't send a fax via the Print menu.

Their product is fantastic. It's rock-solid and full-featured. I was easily able to set up a "fax server" using their stand-alone client - whenever it receives a fax, it packages it up as an email and sends to me.

If you're interested, you should email them and as if they can make a Mac client, or at least work with an existing Mac client so that it can talk to their server.

[This message has been edited by timur (edited 06-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by timur (edited 06-07-2000).]

If you want a free solution, you may want to try hylafax, there are Mac, Unix an WIndows clients.

hylafax is at <http://www.hylafax.org/>

RU

PCFE

4Sight Fax works very well and is undergoing an overhaul. I haven't seen the new version but an acquaintence of mine is beta-testing it and can say nothing but that he is impressed. My friend has written a 4D plug-in for 4Sight Fax (which I use and is the reason I went with 4Sight) but can't say much due to NDA.

I have spoken with the 4Sight Fax salesman before and I think he can be believed. I talked with him before WAM!NET decided to upgrade the product and he told me that he was fighting hard for 4Sight Fax. He also told me that they are selling tons of it with no effort and that Apple is their biggest customer and that Apple threatened replacing it unless it included TCP/IP support (this info is 6+ months old), so I suspect one addition to 4Sight Fax will include TCP/IP connections to clients and better Windows client situation (the current one is "not great.")

Thank you all for your responses - I have never had such helpful information. I hope I can contribute to these discussions.

Alan

We've been using 4-sight fax since 1996 and it's our only option. We faxed close to a quarter of a million pages last year and the software, while not as user friendly as I'd like it to, is fairly stable. I say it's our only option because no other software will support multiple modems (we run 4). I to have spoken to a few people at Wam!Net and, unlike a few months ago, I feel confortable that the software will be supported and upgraded. I've looked at other options but FaxElite has the number of modem problem and eFax is to expensive for our volume. Additionaly, most of our faxes are sent through 4D. 4-Sight and 4D like to talk to one another and that makes our lives much easier. Now, I can only hope that the next version will have a better GUI interface (to better monitor multiple modem activity), a way to print real fax confirmations and mostly that incoming faxes are printed faster. When we receive a high volume of faxes (30 or more an hour) while sending some out, it may take up to 24 hours for faxes to be printed. Even though we have a dedicated server (4400/200) and laser printer! Overall, I like this software and I'd recommend it.

------------------