[WinMac] Network FAXing! Omtool FAX Sr. NO!

Steve Craft(scraft[at]nothinbut.net)
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 18:21:42 -0400

There is a product caled Fax Sr. by Omtool Corp.
I bought it because it ran on NT Server (for sending
and receiving FAXes) and because it was cross-platform
(Win3, Win95, WinNT, MacOS, some Unixes).

What a piece of junk.

The software requires a Gammalink or Brooktrout FAX board.
Although the box and ads said "works with USR modems", tech
support told me to get a Gammalink or Brooktrout after I
experienced connection problems - other NT FAX vendors
somehow figured out how to make a USR (can you say "standard
of all standards?") modem work...

The FAX server software is composed of 12(!) NT Services.
Some are very slow (impeding operation of others). The
whole thing is resource intensive - I ran it on a Digital
Equipment Corp dual Pentium Pro 200MHz with 192mb of RAM
(running nothing else), and the thing was like molasses.

The software has no easy administrative setup. I was
looking to have one FAX/Modem answer the line, save the
incoming file as a .TIFF, and notify the FAX admin person that
something new had come in - this is impossible with FAX Sr.
Yes, there are many options for DID routing, Exchange and
Notes and MS-Mail integration, but simple/easy admin setup,
forget it.

The software came with a 25-day free license. My reseller
was supposed to get an unlock code from Omtool and then
call me with the code.... Needless to say, the reseller
dropped the ball. Imagine my surprise when I went back to
the FAX software and it didn't work! I called Omtool, found
out how things "are supposed to work", and then unlocked
my software - which I had purchased in advance.

There is no automated client install process. You would think
an enterprise-wide FAX tool would have a scripted install, an
SMS package definition file, or at least a documented list of
files, their locations, and Registry modifications so you could
roll your own installation. Not FAX Sr. They expect you to
sit at every computer and install manually (this goes for
Macs too), and then when users use the software for the
first time, they are expected to fill out a bunch of semi-
technical information (unless you want to burden yourself
as the software installer to add every name, incoming FAX
path, contact number, near printer, etc yourself). And we all
know how well Joe User does that, right? I was looking at
doing this for 220 computers....

Oh, and before I go, I was having a real hard time getting
the Mac and WinNT 3.51 clients to just send a FAX to the
mapped "FAX Printer". I called tech support for 2-3 days,
finally I got an email that said "I am sure this is an NT
server security problem, I have closed your call ticket number."
That's it.

Omtool's FAX Sr. cost just under $3,000 for a 25-user license.
It sits on the shelf now. I am investigating other multi-
client FAX software vendors now.

> -----Original Message-----
>
> Hello!
>
> I've heard a bit about network faxing programs which enable
> you to fax from
> one computer on the network and the fax server will send the
> fax off. I was
> hoping there would be a cross-platform solution so that I
> could make an NT
> box be the fax server and have macs AND PCs on the network
> fax using it. Am
> I dreaming?
>

"If it's not elite, I don't want it" Kid - Steve Craft
             -- Me scraft@nothinbut.net
                                                        www.nothinbut.net/~scraft

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Fri Aug 14 1998 - 15:24:17 PDT