Quadrant Touts Replacement for Withdrawn IBM Domino Fax for i5/OS

March 22, 2011 Alex Woodie

IBM i customers who are looking for a replacement for IBM Domino Fax for i5/OS may want to check out the FastFax migration path unveiled last week by Quadrant Software. The third-party software vendor says its FastFax for Domino i offering is a plug-and-play replacement for IBM Domino Fax for i5/OS, which IBM recently stopped selling and will stop supporting next year.

Quadrant has long been a leading proponent of fax integration with IBM i applications. While its FastFax offering doesn’t run fax workloads on the IBM i platform (It offloads them to a dedicated “black box” device.), Quadrant utilizes programming interfaces to the extent that fax communication to and from 5250 and other types of IBM i applications is as seamless as you can ask for.

The Domino Fax for i5/OS offering actually gave customers the option to utilize fax communication hardware running on the IBM i-based Power Systems server. For those so inclined, it also gave users the option to use standalone Windows servers or integrated xSeries hardware.

Whichever fax hardware the customer used, the Domino Fax for i5/OS software enabled Lotus Notes users to send and receive faxes directly from their Notes client. The solution supported the faxing of simple text, rich text, and graphics, and also enabled users to send faxes directly from Microsoft Word and Excel.

In October, IBM announced that it would stop selling Domino Fax for i5/OS on January 14, and stop supporting the offering on April 30, 2012. In addition to withdrawing Domino Fax for i5/OS (alternatively called Domino Fax for iSeries in IBM literature), IBM withdrew a collection of AFP fonts.

Quadrant’s FastFax replacement for Domino Fax for i5/OS enables users to send and receive faxes using their Lotus Notes e-mail clients.

Quadrant claims that, as a result of its support for the SNDDOMFAX command, its FastFax for Domino i offering is the only fax replacement solution that is “truly integrated” and requires no additional programming to implement. Sending and receiving faxes with FastFax for Domino i, Quadrant says, “is as easy as sending and receiving e-mail.”

In fact, Quadrant uses the Domino e-mail server to send and receive faxes with FastFax. Once installed, the software provides users with a button in their Lotus Notes e-mail software that opens a dialog box, where users can fill in fax information, such as the fax number and the name of the recipient. The fax is then delivered by the Domino e-mail server. Users also view incoming faxes using the Notes e-mail client.

Quadrant’s 20-plus years of experience in the IBM i fax and forms market and its relationship with IBM make it a solid choice for users of Domino Fax for i5/OS that are looking for a replacement, says Steve Woodard, the new CEO of Quadrant. “FastFax for Domino i is a proven solution that has been recommended by IBM and provides an integration to allow customers to migrate from Domino Fax for i quickly and easily with minimal disruptions to critical business processes,” Woodard says in a press release.

Roosevelt Paper Company uses FastFax for Domino i to e-mail purchase orders, order acknowledgements, invoices, delivery slips, and other types of documents, according to the company’s CIO, John Gordon Jr. “We’ve been using it for years and it runs great,” he says.

For more information on IBM Domino Fax for i5/OS, see www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/software/domino/related/fxd/index.html and IBM United States Withdrawal Announcement 910-201 (.pdf).