Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!ucbvax!LANL.GOV!peter%infidel
From: peter%infidel@LANL.GOV
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Networks considered harmful
Message-ID: <8912191635.AA10182@infidel.lanl.gov>
Date: 19 Dec 89 16:35:05 GMT
References: <8912190403.AA20489@p.lanl.gov>
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Bill,

I have to disagree with your analysis of the Fax/Email issue.  It is
not an issue of "PR", it is an issue of packaging and standardization.
While I agree that everything can be done by a PC, and it can be done
better, the packaging of a FAX unit is incredible.  Scanner, modem,
software (not so soft) all wrapped up in a tidy package, driving the
cost of manufacture down, and reducing the skills needed to operate the
beast down to dialing a phone and inserting paper into a xerox
machine.  Skills most people already have.  Also keep in mind that most
people do not have a computer, but they do have a phone jack.  For the
average person or small business it is going to be cheaper (in terms of
immediate $$s and things to learn) to get a Fax unit.  

Faxes also are amazingly standardized, this will take a while to 
accomplish in the arena of Email.  The computer industry is continually
threatening to switch to X.blah-dee-blah, and you know they will not
be happy there.  It is an industry hopelessly caught up in the grass is
always greener syndrome.  People want to buy something now and use it now.
I suspect that most people do not want to keep up with the EMERGING (ahhh,
It's Alive !?!) standards.

Yours by email,

Peter Ford
Center for Nonlinear Studies
Los Alamos National Labs

P.S.  I have never sent anything by Fax.