Protus IP Solutions says its new MyFax Affiliate Program, a campaign designed to further expand its presence within the Internet-based messaging (or fax) marketplace, is the company’s first big push at aligning itself with as many partners as it can.

One of the Ottawa-based application service provider’s flagship products – MyFax.com – is aimed primarily at small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and small office-home office (SOHO) customers. Thus the sizeable Canadian SMB market is of utmost importance to Protus, though the Internet-based MyFax.com service is being pitched Stateside also.

According to Steve Adams, vice-president of marketing for Protus, mobility, emerging privacy regulations, the simplicity of the MyFax service, and a compelling return-on-investment are what’s driving Protus’ business.

We’re seeing an evolution of people getting away from relying on faxes the same way that they used to, however, the number of faxes being sent and received is increasing,” he said. “I think more people think Elvis is alive than the fax machine, and while there’s definitely been a shift in terms of the style of fax machines, it’s still a growth industry.”

The MyFax Affiliate Program offers qualified partners the opportunity to earn up to US$20 for each new subscriber referred to MyFax.com. For the first three months of enrollment in the program, MyFax Affiliate Partners will receive a double commission of $20 for every referred MyFax subscriber. Following this limited time offer, the referral will be based at $10 per subscriber.

“MyFax has proven to be very popular with our customers and is gaining great adoption in the marketplace. We’re committed to growing this affiliate channel through compelling, straight-forward programs that deliver meaningful returns in revenue and value for our partners,” Adams said. “There are more people working from home and though there’s still a demand for faxes, many don’t want to have to pay for a fax machine.”

Upon first glance, MyFax doesn’t appear to be terribly important – perhaps this is a by-product of the fax machine itself as Adams suggested. But with closer inspection, the online service’s value is quickly realized. MyFax is an e- mail based fax service that enables users to send and receive faxes from their existing e-mail account without a fax machine. Incoming faxes are sent directly to the intended recipient, remaining confidential. No hardware or software is required.

Adams explained Protus assigns a facsimile number to each of its customers to make use of. The user does the receiving, scripting and sending of faxes electronically. To send a fax, it’s a simple matter of attaching a Word document to an e-mail and sending it directly to MyFax, the service in turn automatically faxes the document to the intended recipient. Whenever a fax arrives for the customer, MyFax converts the paper fax to a PDF or TIFF file and immediately e-mails it to the recipient as well as posts it in the secured section of its Web site, readily accessible.

“This eliminates dealing with long distance phone charges and/or paying costly hotel room fees for receiving and sending faxes while on a business trip,” he said. “It’s virtually immediate with no extra delay. We’re very pleased with our growth since the service was launched last spring.

“We have a handful of partner affiliates signed up today, but we are hoping to add hundreds of affiliates over the next three to four months.”