Hot Fax about Japan

[yanpa]

Not sure if Martin Fackler counts as a newbie reporter...

In High-Tech Japan, the Fax Machines Roll On

TOKYO — Japan is renowned for its robots and bullet trains, and has some of the world’s fastest broadband networks. But it also remains firmly wedded to a pre-Internet technology — the fax machine — that in most other developed nations has joined answering machines, eight-tracks and cassette tapes in the dustbin of outmoded technologies.

Last year alone, Japanese households bought 1.7 million of the old-style fax machines, which print documents on slick, glossy paper spooled in the back. In the United States, the device has become such an artifact that the Smithsonian is adding two machines to its collection, technology historians said.

“The fax was such a success here that it has proven hard to replace,” said Kenichi Shibata, a manager at NTT Communications, which led development of the technology in the 1970s. “It has grown unusually deep roots into Japanese society.”

The Japanese government’s Cabinet Office said that almost 100 percent of business offices and 45 percent of private homes had a fax machine as of 2011.

...more...

[nikoneko]

Heh someone should do an article on how if I lose my business inkan somebody can take everything I own. And then a followup on why I freaking need a business inkan in the first place. Then another followup on why I need two, with a special one just for the bank.

[james]

Here's a tl;dr of the article: Japan is dominated by the clout of swelling ranks of old geezers who don't want to give up their fax machines; the fax machine will die when they die. Until then, if you want their money, there's not much one can do but suck it up.

Here's my question - are most of these companies still literally working with paper faxes? It just seems to me that in the interim they could at least receive and transmit electronically, even if the other side is still hellbent on utilizing these anachronisms.

[Hamaki]

in Japan sending a fax is the same as sending registered mail and is accepted by the courts as being the same as handing a person a document. I do not know why, as the fax send report is as easy to fake as an email.

[yanpa]

A colleague in my office has the task of sending a daily report to one of our customers. The workflow is like this:

1) Using MS Word, print out a form template with today's date
2) Retrieve printed form from the printer
3) Manually fill in the requisite numbers
4) Take completed form back to the printer (which is one of these combines printer/fax/copier things) and fax it to the customer.

I feel it is important to keep traditions alive, so thus far I have refrained from explaining how she could fax the form directly from the comfort of her PC. And I haven't even begun to think about the possibility of writing a script which could send the report data direct from the database...

AFAIK that's the only regular use of fax, everything else is electronic. (A lot of the business involves transferring data back and forth - at our end it's all done by scripts - courtesy of yours truly - but I do know that there is more than one customer company where the data transfer operations which any sane organisation would automate, are carried out by living breathing humans...)

[matsuki]

Here's a tl;dr of the article: Japan is dominated by the clout of swelling ranks of old geezers who don't want to give up their fax machines; the fax machine will die when they die. Until then, if you want their money, there's not much one can do but suck it up.

THIS

Here's my question - are most of these companies still literally working with paper faxes? It just seems to me that in the interim they could at least receive and transmit electronically, even if the other side is still hellbent on utilizing these anachronisms.

Yeah, this is my way of sucking it up...$5 a month and I have a fax # that e-mails me incoming faxes and I can send any graphic/txt file by fax from it. Almost never gets used but having a fax number makes "We Japanese" customers trust the business more, just like my Tokyo # that forwards to my cell.

[Samurai_Jerk]

just like my Tokyo # that forwards to my cell.

Speaking of that I know a chick who's a public elementary school teacher and she told me all teachers are required to have a land line. I don't know if it's just her prefecture that requires it or if that's a national thing. She's not sure exactly what the logic is but since parents here have the homeroom teacher's contact details she thinks it's supposed to make them feel more secure.

[Coligny]

That's the kind of thing you laught your ass off until the shithit the fan...

France, January 2000... biggurest storm evar... the week+ autonomy given by the 48 volt battery backup of all lanldlines phones system was a life saver...

[wuchan]

Northeast blackout 2003: no power. no AC. phones worked. nothing else did.....


then I went to work, business as usual. no fax. big ass corporation, had generators.

[Samurai_Jerk]

That's the kind of thing you laught your ass off until the shithit the fan...

France, January 2000... biggurest storm evar... the week+ autonomy given by the 48 volt battery backup of all lanldlines phones system was a life saver...

Yeah, it makes sense for police officers and first responders but not elementary school teachers.

[matsuki]

That's the kind of thing you laught your ass off until the shithit the fan...

France, January 2000... biggurest storm evar... the week+ autonomy given by the 48 volt battery backup of all lanldlines phones system was a life saver...

Yeah, it makes sense for police officers and first responders but not elementary school teachers.

haha, have a number but does it say anything about having a phone attached to it? Tax write off and leave it phone-less.