The end of the faxed page

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Don't tell Autologic, Information International or Scitex, but Ezra Gershon thinks their fax systems are doomed.

"The need for [fax] scanners will eventually go to zero," said Gershon, the head of Integrated Technologies Solutions Inc. of Farmingdale, N.Y.

In their place will be that old standby, data transmission.

The reason? Compression and faster modems mean we don't have to send pictures of pages, Gershon said; we can send either the page, or we can RIP it and send the PostScript file for imaging at the remote site.

"The big argument," Gershon said, "is whether you RIP it at the main plant and transmit PostScript, or send a page file and RIP it at the remote site."

"I prefer RIPing it at the main plant because you have more control over the quality."

With fax systems made by Autologic Inc., this fax-to-data transition is easy. Autologic, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., has recently added RIP capability to its fax scanners. For the rest, Integrated Technologies and others make communications equipment to help convert papers from fax to data transmission.

Two other companies are emblematic of the future of transmission: