E-Fax Main Page

Save time & money with your partners immediately!!
You can even collect monthly fee from other companies if you are a service provider!

What is E-Fax?
E-Fax, as its name implied, is a new generation electronic/enhanced fax. It's not only an electronic version of fax, but it's also a new concept/philosophy of handling readable/printable documents. So, don't be limited by the concept of traditional fax system. E-Fax provides you a great flexibility to do whatever you want. Also, we don't think that E-Mail system is a direct replacement of existing Fax system. What we need is something between Fax and E-Mail, and includes all the features of Fax and E-Mail. Our idea of a perfect E-Fax system is:

It provides all the features that existing fax and E-Mail system have. In other words, it must be compatible with existing Fax or E-Mail system.
It links existing telephone system (PSTN) and LAN/Internet closely.
It provides convenient conversion bridges between existing Fax system/E-Mail system/Printer/and Other documents (Word, Excel, Acrobat, HTML, Text, PowerPoint, ....).
It saves money on long distance fax calls.
It should support digital signature and makes the fax as an official document.
It is extendable -- people can use the architecture to develop their own systems.

E-Fax is something between "Traditional Fax", "Internet Fax Service Provider", "E-Mail", and "Web Servers" (HTTP and FTP servers with add-on programs). Indeed, E-Fax is a plan to integrate all the existing technologies and make them more realistic to end users. Currently, you may be able to send a fax via a Web Server (by internet browser), or send a fax by e-mail. However, it's not convenient to most people because most of the services are not free and only available in limited areas. Also, the service providers accept only very few document types. It may be good to travelers, however, as a everyday work, fax is still irreplaceable in most companies.

E-Fax can be a replacement of Fax machines. However, it can co-exist with the current fax/e-mail systems. So, it can be the first step of the "E-Transition" in your company. You don't have to change a lot in one step, you can try a small step and start to save money/boost your efficiency now!

Here's the comparison between traditional fax and E-Fax:

System type	Traditional Fax + Telephone line	E-Fax + Internet or Telephone line
Storage form	paper	paper or digital files
how to transfer	sent by fax machine + telephone line	Sent by PC + Modem+ telephone line or PC + Internet
cost	charge of telephone call (long distance call costs much more than local calls)	charge of telephone call or Internet cost (negligible)
Document management	poor put in document folders	Backup Merge/Cut Move to different folders Browse/Navigate Search Can be integrated with database systems
Storage/Backup cost	high (around USD 0.1/page) heavy weight (at large quantity) waste space	Very low (USD 0.5 CD-R can hold about 50,000 pages) light weight a little space (in HD or CDR)
Transfer speed	several minutes	several seconds (or several minutes if sent by a local Modem)
Fail retry	manually	can be automatically
Signature	poor (sigil/stamp on the paper)	Digital signature or sigil/stamp on the paper or sigil/stamp put by Fax Editor
Send/receive log	no (depends on the fax machine)	yes
Send E-documents	need to print out first	can be sent directly
Integrate with database	no	yes -- can generate different fax document files, and then fax out automatically
Send/Receive on internet	not possible	yes (in the future version)
Send/Receive by E-Mail	not possible	yes (in the future version)

E-Fax includes E-Mail as an important part, however it is not E-Mail. They are close related, however, E-Fax solves many problems encountered when you want to use E-Mail to replace fax:

Existing documents (like Word, Excel, Power Point) cannot be converted into e-mail directly. You need to send them as attachments.
Attachments are not safe -- virus, incompatible file format, incompatible version, incompatible language or operating system. Anyway, you can't assume that people are using the same computer environment. It's much safer to use image files to send documents.
The receiver may not have an e-mail account.
E-Mail is not real time. When you are sending a fax, you'll know the result immediately.
Documents in paper format need to be scanned or converted first.

Anyway, there is no "perfect communication media". Fax is not perfect, E-Mal either. Some instant messaging systems like ICQ, Messenger, or IM provides you another communication media. However, they are not perfect either. Our E-Fax system does create some new ways of handling documents. You may use E-Fax to combine different communication media, and create your own "perfect" media.

Different ways to handle documents/messages:

name	Storage form	Equipment required to transfer the document
Traditional fax	physical paper	Fax Machine+Telephone line+
E-Fax	electronic files APF, REF files (these format are used in our system) Traditional Fax/E-Doc/E-Mail/Image files can be converted to E-Fax format easily.	PC+Internet or PC+Modem
E-Doc	electronic files Text file(.txt), HTML files (.htm), Word(.doc), Excel(.xls), Acrobat (*.pdf)	PC+Internet+document handling programs and correct environment (like Word/Excel/...)
E-Mail	electronic files "*.eml" files or other forms	PC+Internet+E-Mail client program
Image files	electronic files JPG, GIF, TIF, PNG, BMP, PCX, DCX, .....	PC+Internet+Image tools
Instant messages (rarely used for documents, not integrated in our current system)	text or files	PC+Internet+Instant Messaging programs (ICQ, Messenger, IM, ...)

* The direct support of Instant messaging system is not available now. However, you can use these systems to send generated E-Fax files. This gives you an "instant fax machine"!

The Difference between E-Fax and Internet Fax Service Providers

One major feature of E-Fax system is to save money spent on long distance fax calls. That is, people can send fax via internet. Internet Fax is not a brand new idea at all. Its main idea is using a Fax modem to convert faxes into digital data, then the program uses existing internet facilities to send the digitized fax, and then the remote gateway will send out the digitized fax to the target fax machine. The major purpose of Internet Fax is to save money spent on long distance calls.

During the last decade, Internet Fax systems do save money for a lot people. However, as a result of the fast growth of Internet, the concept of Internet Fax systems needs to be changed. Our Internet Fax series product is the first "total solution"/"Peer to Peer"/"Highly integrated" Internet Fax systems.

Click here to see the concepts of Internet Fax Service Provider.

Our E-Fax system products:

Product name	Price	Description
UFO Fax Server	USD 95	A multi-purpose Fax server and gateway. It can receive fax from Internet or Modems, and forward/print out the received fax. It supports multiple modems and can replace your fax machine with the combination of UFO Fax client.
UFO Fax Server Lite (free)	Free	Lite version of UFO Fax Server. It can only receive internet fax to a folder. You can send this program to your friends, then you don't have to pay long distance telephone bill (on fax) any more!
UFO Fax Client	USD 15	A program which can send E-Fax via Modem/Internet/or E-Mail.
UFO InterFax SOHO	USD 30	It combines Fax Server/ Fax Client/ and Fax Scanner in one program. It's ideal for small office/home office/or personal use.
Fax Browser	USD 15	A handy tool to browse received or stored fax.
Fax Viewer	Free	A fax viewer with basic fax editing functions.
Fax Editor (coming soon!)	USD 25	A fax editor which let you merge image on fax (put sigil/stamp on fax), scan images, convert images into fax, mix fax with a background, .....
Fax Editor Lite (coming soon!)	Free	A simplified Fax editor. It allows you to scan/convert images into fax, mix fax with a background, and convert fax into images. (Fax Viewer can convert a fax into BMP/PCX/DCX/TIF format, Fax Editor provides more image types conversion)

Main features of our highly integrated system

Integrated Client/Server/Gateway/Tools & Utilities in one product set. You can get everything you need at one time.
No need to pay monthly fee any more. You can even become the service provider and earn money!
Built in fax printer driver, fax viewer, and fax browser. Makes the procedure of sending a fax much easier.
E-Fax makes the management/search/backup of your fax much easier and costless. Our excellent fax viewer eliminate the need to print out each fax (you can still print them out). Also, paperless means less money, less trash, and environment protection!
Can convert Fax to E-Mail and vice versa.
Extend your fax -- not only black & white faxes, we also support color pictures if you use our own fax format.
An excellent bridge between physical fax and E-mail. With our freely distributable fax viewer, you can share E-fax files with your business partners directly. This helps people overcome the inconvenience caused by the transition from traditional fax to e-fax/e-mail.

Fax Server/Gateway features: (you can only purchase Fax client program if you don't need a server)

Auto fax routing. Users can still use the telephone number directly, and the server/gateway will find the correct target remote server/gateway.
Dial out limit, user authorization, and send log, which protects your telephone line from unauthorized usage.
Based on TCP/IP communication architecture. This makes our system cross-platform possible and very easy to be installed
Can work with our I-Phone gateway tightly. (the I-Phone/I-Fax gateway standard version is free for download, and will be ready for testing very soon)

Please click here to know more about this system.

Who need them, and what hardware E-fax or equipments you need

To use these products, at least you need a computer running Windows 95/98/ME/NT/ or 2000. We plan to provide Linux version servers in the future.

A company or division with 3-100 computers, LAN (Local Area Network), one or several FAX modems, and at least one printer is the our typical target of the whole set products. Single PC running at home can install our "InterFax" or "Fax Client" program.

Please click here to see the details of different products.
Please click here to see the price list.