Fax from within Microsoft Exchange

London, UK, 15 April 1996 - Today GFI announced the availability of FAXmaker for Exchange, a FAX gateway for Microsoft Corporations Exchange server. FAXmaker adds features such as a multi line fax server, inbound fax routing, print to fax from any Windows and Dos application and fax management to Microsoft EXCHANGE SERVER.

"FAXmaker is an easy to use and reliable FAX gateway for EXCHANGE" said Robert Shurtleff, product manager of EXCHANGE server at Microsoft Corporation. "We are pleased that GFI Software has committed its leading edge FAX & VOICE technology to our EXCHANGE messaging platform".

Tight integration with Microsoft Exchange
To send a fax, users simply print to the FAXmaker printer driver, after which the Exchange send message dialog pops up. This allows faxes to be sent via Microsoft Exchange from any application that can print. Alternatively, faxes can be sent directly from the send message dialog. The message can contain rich text, attachments and even OLE Objects. FAXmaker will convert the message on the server and send it out as a fax. All reporting is done via the Exchange server.

FAXmaker runs as an Exchange connector, which gives administrators full control from within the Microsoft Exchange environment. User options, such as routing number, billing code and cover pages can be set from within the Exchange administrator. This tight integration with Microsoft Exchange results in virtually non existent training costs for the users and little or no administration overhead.

Inbound fax routing
An important ability for the FAX gateway is to be able to determine the right recipient of an incoming fax. FAXmaker supports DID/DTMF, CSID and OCR routing. CSID routing is based on the FAX ID (identification of the fax machine), which can be related to a recipient. DID/DTMF routing is based on assigning extensions to each user, which can be done by the companies PBX. Alternatively a fax can be routed by recognizing the text on the page (OCR), and finding keywords related to a recipient.

Fax management
Since fax is by far the most popular form of inter company communication (>90% of communication), some form of management is necessary. FAXmaker allows all faxes to be costed per department or user, and gives administrators the ability to block certain numbers. (i.e. block international numbers)

Pricing
FAXmaker for Exchange starts at $495, including a 2 line fax gateway and 10 users. FAXmaker for Exchange supports most popular fax modems, as well as high end fax/voice boards, such as the Brooktrout cards.

GFI will market FAXmaker for Exchange through Microsoft Solution Providers a swell as Microsoft Delivery Service Partners. To this end it has set up a "Fax partner program", which offers both marketing and technical support.