GENE’S TECH CHECK: Is It Time to Get Rid of Old Software and Hardware?

(This post originally appeared on Forbes)

Tech Check is a weekly blog that offers suggestions for solving some of the biggest headaches business professionals face with technology.

This week, we spoke to Cyril Cohen, President of Cyril’s Foods, a 10-person food manufacturer located in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, which provides bakery products such as pastries, wraps, and pizza crusts to the food service and retail industries

What is your biggest technology frustration?

Some of the companies we work with still use legacy systems, which forces us to maintain old systems like fax machines to do business with them. This includes not only other small businesses, but multibillion-dollar enterprises as well.

What are you doing to solve this problem?

To solve the faxing issue, we found a workaround for the legacy requirements of some clients by going through Go Daddy’s Fax Through Email service. We are assigned a fax number by Go Daddy, and we receive the order in an email format with a PDF attached.

 Our expert’s advice:  Phil Lubell, Senior Director of B2C Product Marketing and eCom Platforms at Brother, has these suggestions:

For companies set on faxing, Brother has a fax-forwarding app that allows incoming documents to be routed to email or to the cloud. Not only do all Brother multifunction printers enable you to print, copy, scan, and fax, but select models also feature a full suite of applications that allow you to easily convert paper documents into digital, searchable document file types to quickly store, organize, retrieve, and share information with customers.

My thoughts:

Phil’s right – most of my clients have purchased or leased all-in-one units for printing, faxing, etc. that also tie into their networks to help with document management and other filing tasks.  I rarely see dedicated fax machines.  Online faxing services like GoDaddy’s or eFax are also still popular, particularly for very small companies.