The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 23

Sunday, July 7, 1996 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER C3 Computers and Technology Borland turns around The fax machine: Use survey and Quick response Method that those surveyed said generates a quicker response from person contacted: a big loss forecastina data show businesses i am usinn fay machines more and more to transmit information, Creating a problem for U.S. business 60 fax users at Fortune 500 vv companies say they're faxing more than last year 61 Of faxes are sent longdistance 4 1 Of phone bills at Fortune 500 companies are attributed to fax costs 55 0f those survevecl tnink faxing is easier to use than e-mail 85 plain PaPer faxes over thermal paper; half of thermal paper faxes are copied to plain paper By Kara Blond INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON At the American Management Association, which teaches businesses how to "cut down on the paper pile," the fax machine hasn't learned the lesson. Every month, it churns out more than 25,500 faxes from people around the world and sends out nearly 22,000 each averaging three pages. I stacked up a day's worth of faxes, like a tower, it would proba-bly be 6 feet tall over my head," said 5-foot4-inch Sandy Doll, one of -two full-time workers employed by the New York-based association to sort and send off faxes. This year alone, an estimated 35 billion sheets of office paper costing about $174 million will be used in fax machines, according to a 1995 study by Business Information Systems, of Boston.

Placed end to end, the sheets of paper would circle Earth 241 times. Ten years ago, the trail would have barely made it around the globe 15 times. Fax machines are doing what regular mail used to: creating an overwhelming paper trail of important documents, junk mail and unsolicited advertisements. "Now, it's about speed, volume and cost efficiency," said Sarah Stambler, president of TechProse a small New York publishing firm, echoing those who have come to depend on the fax machine. "We've gone way beyond the postal system." To combat the fax glut, which seefns particularly onerous in the fields of communications, law and government, some organizations to paperless electronic mail, "900" numbers to make senders pay for faxes, or shutting off the machines after hours or on weekends.

Despite their best efforts, most say nothing is working. Laura Llanos, receptionist at Warren Publishing, in Washington, said shq regularly returns to work after the weekend to find the company's twejj machines overflowing with i'axts and out of paper from the loaa. In the staggering pile, she'll finfl advertisements from local theaters, multiple copies of identical news releases, and information about scheduled concerts. The thousands of fax machines serving the White House and Congress run 24 hours a day, year-round, transmitting faxes of bills, schedules and position papers "by the truckload," as one White House aide put it. At White Williams, a Philadelphia law firm, two machines send out 8,000 pages of fax every day, at a cost to the firm of $1 per sheet.

Fax machines, short for facsimile, are devices that use telephones to transmit images of documents around the corner or around the globe almost instantly. Indeed, the fax machine and its offspring the fax glut are relatively new phenomena. A decade ago, the approximately 500,000 installed fax machines were used only by large, wealthy companies, and were slow and expensive. Today, a standard business fax machine costs less than $1,000 and can send or receive more than 250 pages an hour. Less-sophisticated fax machines used at home, an increasing trend, cost much More than 13 million machines are now in use in the United States, according to an estimate by Giga Information Systems, an industry research group.

"It has allowed us to cut down on express mail and quickly contact people around the world," said Virginia Sheridan, president of M. Silver Associates, a public relations agency in New York. "Nearly 30 percent of our phone charges are probably faxes." The average Fortune 500 company spends 41 percent of its $37 million annual phone bill on fax costs, according to a 1996 GallupPitney Bowes survey. For most businesses of any size, fax is second only to the telephone as the communication method of choice, the survey found. At White Williams, one incoming and two outgoing fax machines run 24 hours a day for the company's 150 lawyers.

They receive 150 faxes a day, and send about 200 each averaging 30 pages, according to Rasheed Knox, the company's 20-year-old fax operator. "I can work nonstop," Knox said of the legal opinions, drafts of court is expected Java programming language. Chris Le Tocq, at the market-research firm Dataquest in San Jose, said Borland has lost the attention of top software developers. "They haven't been able to have people feel they were in front of the wave," he said. Borland's stock, which has been falling for months, tumbled further on the bad news.

Shares closed Friday at $7,125. As recently as February, Borland stock had traded for more than $20. The declining stock price will make it more expensive for Borland to complete its planned acquisition of Open Environment of Massachusetts, a maker of programming tools for computer networks. As announced in May, that deal would give each Open Environment shareholder slightly more than half a share of Borland stock as long as Borland stock was valued at $12.75 or more. Now that Borland is trading for less, it would have to give Open Environment shareholders more Borland shares to complete the deal.

Still, officials of both companies said Tuesday that they were committed to completing the takeover by the end of the summer. The companies have filed required papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In announcing Wetsel's departure, the company said he would be replaced temporarily by William F. Miller, a Stanford business professor who is chairman of Borland's board of directors. Miller is traveling out of the country and could not be reached.

Wetsel, a finance expert with no experience in software, replaced Borland founder Philippe Kahn as CEO in January 1995. He had been credited with restoring stability to the company. Once the nation's third-largest software maker, Borland started losing money in the early 1990s, when its application programs ran into stiff competition from Microsoft and others. From 1992 to 1995, the company lost more than $240 million. The company heralded its slim profit for fiscal 1996, which ended March 31, as a sign of its resurgence.

ti jf A-st to read it eoenj day. http phillynews Telephone Fax 313 E-mail I MM Voice mail HEJ Fax paper use For U.S. in thousands of tons '92 '96 '98 Pitney Bowes of Fortune 500 companies Knight-Ridder Tribune room supervisor. "We've gotten calls from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times about installing their own 900 numbers," Diamond said, adding that the line costs the newspaper about $400 a month. "The problem is that we also have a free personal fax line and that number gets out easily so we have to keep changing it.

"Maybe it gets some people to mail us things instead of faxing them," he said. Other businesses have considered turning off the fax machine over weekends or after business hours to cut down on junk faxes, a move environmentalists applaud for saving energy and paper. Meanwhile, laws governing the distribution of unsolicited faxes are on the books in California and several other states. Some legislation a toll-free number on all fax advertisements, allowing companies to call the sender and ask to be taken off the distribution list. But most companies have become so dependent on their fax machines, they "just deal" with junk faxes, according to Andrew Johnson, Giga Information Systems' facsimile industry analyst.

"Vendors have tried to respond with features which cut off access to non-programmed phone numbers," he said. "But I can't say it's redefined the marketplace. Most people just see it as a nuisance." Sheridan said her public relations agency can not afford to turn off its machines because clients from around the world fax on their home time schedule. Still, she admits, the constant busy signals and rolling fax pages are excessive. "We all overfax," she said.

"We're just creating a communication process without creating substantive work. We're communicating for the sake of communicating." Dan Stets is on special assignment. His column, "Cutting Edge," will return next week. 286 174T SOURCES: Energy Gallup survey for briefs and correspondence. "I can't even go to the bathroom because there's so much work to do.

No one seems to care about the cost they'll even fax one-word documents just because it's quick." Many company executives say some overworked fax machines are being relieved by personal computers that can receive fax transmissions without automatically printing them. People are also increasingly using so-called electronic mail, messages transmitted by computer instead of paper. The strategies being used to reduce fax glut vary from place to place. At International Business Machines' office in Somers, N.Y., workers are turning to the personal computer faxmodem. A person can review the faxes electronically and delete unwanted ones before they are printed out.

The modem, a device that connects the computer to the telephone network, is now a standard feature for nearly all of IBM's personal computers on the market. Office workers at the U.S. Supreme Court have figured out an answer to unwanted junk faxing unpublished fax numbers. The Miami Herald, a daily newspaper in Miami, has found another way. It is using "900" telephone numbers for incoming fax lines to its newsroom, requiring senders to pay $2 per fax.

The procedure has been in place for the last few years and generates enough revenue to offset paper costs for all the newsroom's faxes. It also has slowed the number of junk faxes slightly, according to Bob Diamond, the wire spouses yours and business associates' in the meal. The meal must still qualify as business-related. The 50 percent limit applies to all business meals, whether you are dining with someone in your own city or dining alone at some out-of-town motel during a business trip. The cost of traveling to and from a business-related meal is fully yet again in quarter The software firm posted its worst sales quarter in 6 years.

Analysts said it's been slow to get online. By Scott Thurm KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. The renaissance of Borland International Inc. may prove to be short-lived. Chief executive Gary Wetsel resigned last week.

At the same time, the software maker said it would report sharply lower sales and a larger-than-expected loss for the quarter that ended June 30. Borland, which has been struggling to convert its core businesses from desktop software applications, such as spreadsheets and databases, to programming "tools" for creating software programs, said it would report a loss of 53 cents to 56 cents per share for the quarter. That would amount to about $18 million, more than wiping out the $14.3 million profit Borland reported for its last fiscal year, a profit that was heralded as a sign of its rebirth. In a news release, the company said its sales for the three-month period would total only about $35 million, which would mark its slowest quarter in more than six years. Borland will formally report its quarterly results on July 24.

It's unclear how serious Borland's troubles are. One company insider, who asked not to be named, said continuing losses would force Borland to eliminate up to one-third of its 900 employees and perhaps sell its headquarters building. The insider said directors might consider putting the company or some product lines up for sale. But Borland spokesman Steve Grady denied that conditions were that dire. "There are no layoffs planned at this point," he said, adding that top managers met with employees last week.

Analysts said the company is suffering from competition with Microsoft Corp. on programming tools for individual PCs, and has been slow to introduce products for computer networks and the Internet. Borland's Delphi programming tool is generally considered superior to Microsoft's Visual Basic, but Visual Basic is usually cheaper and is easier to use with other Microsoft programs. "I think they've been really fighting a battle which, at one fundamental level, is unwinna-ble," said Donald DePalma, a senior analyst for Forrester Research, a Massachusetts firm. But Borland's bigger problem may be its failure to seize on the mania surrounding the Internet and the Street Address City State Zip Home Phone Type of account: Personal Other Business Phone Term: 6 month Other 12 Month Interest Payment Options (for terms of 1 year or longer): Monthly Quarterly Semiannually Annually At maturity Opening Deposit (Minimum Deposit is $10,000.) Advanta National Bank USA Member FDIC Formerly named Colonial National Bank USA) Racked by Advanta Colonial Bank USA been serving To be deductible, dinner for client must include business discussion Lock in Value, Safety and Security.

plus tips and taxes, cover charges, room rental fees, and other related entertainment expenses. Here are some other rules: Someone from your company must be present at the meal. That means you may not treat visiting clients to a deductible dinner and a night on the town unless someone from your company participates. You can generally take the same 50 percent deduction if you include CjlO I the stability and financial strength of National Bank USA (formerly named National Bank USA). Adnata National has assets of over $1.4 billion and has Delaware Valley residents for 70 years.

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the Internal Revenue Service will allBw a deduction of 50 percent of thbill if the meal is consumed in a situation directly related to the active conduct of business. Here's an example: You sell plumbing supplies, and one of your best customers is Westgrove Hospital: You take the hospital's chief accountant out for a fancy dinner. You don't discuss business before, during or after the meal. You didn't expect to engage in business discussions because all sales are negotiated by the hospital's purchasing agent, not the chief accountant. But you decided it couldn't hurt to be on friendly terms with the chief accountant.

TJe cost of this meal is not deductible. if there had been a valid disunion of business, 50 percent of thecost would be deductible. And the cost of the meal includes beverages, such as a martini or two, jUsc your phone lo gel quotes on sloeks. imitual funds and monev-markei funds 24 hours a day. See the Inquirer Rawness sec tion for details.

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