It’s not exactly a “save the whales” or American Bald Eagle alarm. But in an article in the Telegraph earlier this month Pixmania, the largest electronics retailer in Europe, released its top 10 list of endangered technologies. And guess what? The fax machine was number two on the list. (The DVD player was number one, by the way, so get ready to repurchase your video collection yet again.)
Now, notice they didn’t say “faxes.” Faxing itself is going stronger than ever. They said fax machines. They’re essentially looking at which products they don’t think they’re going to be selling anymore in their stores. In that context fax machines certainly make sense.
As the Telegraph article points out, there are better ways to send and receive faxes these days – smart phones being chief among them. If you’re reading this blog, you know that you can set MyFax to forward your faxes to any Internet-enabled device so you can send or receive faxes anywhere you can get an Internet connection. That sure beats having to run back to the office just to discover that your fax machine ran out of toner halfway through an important fax.
There were a couple of other interesting technologies on that list too. GPS devices made the list. Again, since you can now download maps to and get directions on your smart phone, who needs a whole separate device just to get from here to there?
So what do you think? Do you agree those technologies will be disappearing quickly? And more importantly, which technologies make your top ten list?
And so long, DVDs. We hardly knew ye.
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2 comments:
I read the list as well. Faxes/All-in-ones are very useful for transmitting cumbersome paper documents quickly and securely. Some examples: RFQ's, PO's, W-9's, Time sheets, insurance claims, legal doc's, enrollment forms, and resumes to name a few. The point is to have a fax when you need it but get rid of the fax line with a fax switch (shares with voice line). Of course land lines was on the endangered list, too. They have been beating that drum for years.
It also mentioned the computer mouse! I'm not holding my breath.
So explain this to me... If electronics OEMs stop selling fax "machines" and soon enough fax machines are not to be sold anywhere, How will Faxing continue to grow strong??? Why would anyone send/use a fax??? In other words, why would MyFax or similar services stick around?
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