You wouldn’t think there was much left to find out about the forthcoming release 3.11 of Microsoft’s Windows for Workgroups (CI No 2,216). But now it has emerged that 3.11 – Snowball to its friends – will include support for the facsimile side of Microsoft At Work. In conjunction with At Work-equipped fax machines, the software will be able to deliver not just image files, but also editable text files to users’ desktop. Microsoft at Work is the company’s attempt to add intelligence to office equipment and tie them all into desktop Windows-based personal computers (CI No 2,187). The initiative garnered considerable support when announced this June and since then the big names in printers, faxes and photocopiers have been beavering a way to implement the operating system. Snowball marks the first implementation of the desktop end of the strategy into the core MS-Windows operating system. While the software will help out with faxing to conventional Group III facsimile machines, the real benefits will emerge when the first generation of At Work-enabled faxes arrive. Mark Edwards product market manager for desktop systems in the UK, says that if one Snowball user sends a fax to another and both intervening fax machines are At Work-savvy the fax can be delivered as an editable text document, instead of a conventional bit-mapped image – not so much a fax machine as a point-to-point electronic mail link, and one that also includes encryption facilities. The first suitable fax machines should begin to appear early next year: Ricoh Co, for example says that its ‘intelligent facsimile system’, combining walk-up and personal computer fax, laser printer and scanner functions will be ship in the first quarter. Apart from the obligatory Microsoft at Work graphical user interface, the machine will incorporate a local area network connection. In and Out mailboxes will enable users to send information directly from their desktops and received messages are routed directly to the recipient’s sub-address. Microsoft remains cagey about when the other elements of Microsoft At Work – the telephony, the photocopying and so forth – will appear on the desktop – apart from the fax capabilities the one plank that is already in place is the advanced printing capabilities – already available in the form of replacement software for the Windows Print manager and a hardware cartridge that fits into Hewlett-Packard Co LaserJet II and III printers.
