DATE: Monday, September 29, 1997            TAG: 9709270442

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

TRICKLE-DOWN TECHNOLOGY SMALL BUSINESS CAN NOW ACCESS LATEST COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

Evidence that the communications revolution has turned into information anarchy greets a business owner upon arrival at the office:

Curled papers cascade from the fax machine to the floor. The fax machine beeps that it's out of paper. The voice mail box is crammed.

James K. Casazza, president of a Norfolk company called InfoXchange, thinks he has developed a technological solution.

Launched this summer, InfoXchange offers businesses and government agencies services such as a fax machine that's never busy and the ability to broadcast a fax or voice message to thousands of people at once. One client is the U.S. Senate.

InfoXchange's Never Busy fax works like this: The company provides a toll-free number that businesses can give clients for regular use or when a high volume of transmittals are expected. InfoXchange stores the faxes in its massive computer system and sends them to the business' fax when it is idle.

Or InfoXchange can help a company send hundreds of faxes or voices messages with one transmission. Dial a toll-free number, insert the fax or record the message, punch in the number for a pre-programmed customer list and send it.

Time Inc. was an early customer of Casazza's, who in the early 1990s began selling the technology to large customers through his first company, Digital Image Technology. Those systems sold for anywhere from $50,000 to $600,000.

``Time wanted to take late-breaking news, once it came out of their legal department, and broadcast it by fax to all the TV and radio stations around the country,'' Casazza said.

The launch this summer of InfoXchange opens up the company's services to smaller businesses. A Hampton Roads radio station has contracted to do a broadcast to the 7,000 phone numbers in its database. InfoXchange promises not only to get the word out on a new promotion, but to use the broadcast to find out which numbers have been changed and which ones are duplicates, marketing director Michael S. Vernon says.

Old Dominion University's Entrepreneurial Center has begun working with InfoXchange to help the company target the right size businesses.

``They have a product that can be used in so many different places that they need to focus,'' said Dennis Ackerman, the center's director. ``If you have 100 people you need to reach, it may not be as cost-effective as if you have 1,000.''

InfoXchange, Ackerman said, has one of the best fax and voice broadcasting technologies available. Casazza is a ``world-class'' technical mind who chose this region for its quality of life, Ackerman said. InfoXchange has the potential to market itself nationally or globally.

Rowena Fullinwider, owner of a Norfolk-based gourmet food company, is considering contracting with InfoXchange to help manage the crush of orders she expects as the holiday season approaches. Rowena's takes wholesale orders from specialty food stores from around the country and mail-order requests from other customers.

The company already has 12 phone lines, but she says she needs more for busy periods. She's not sure the company's phone system can expand.

``The 13th person would definitely get a busy signal,'' Fullinwider said. ``It would be interesting to see how many faxes you are missing, how many orders you are missing.''

InfoXchange is essentially a powerful computer with digital connections to the telephone network. Its circuitry identifies the caller and the phone number that has been dialed using identification technology similar to that used by the local phone company to bill customers for long-distance charges.

Casazza's educational background is in aeronautical engineering, but years ago he got involved in software development. While heading a Long Island company called Walker Communications, he noticed a 3M facsimile server that would receive a fax and broadcast it back to numerous faxes.

The problem was that someone using the product had to learn a series of beeping prompts and coded responses. Casazza developed a voice prompt interface for the 3M technology. Walker Communications, which sold phone systems to small and medium-size companies, sold the system to Southeastern New England Telephone Co., which used it to launch its Faxworks broadcasting system.

Several years later the price of fax machines plunged, making them affordable even for home businesses. But Casazza was unimpressed with the slow pace of advancements in fax broadcast technology.

He developed the InfoXchange computer, founded Digital Image Technology and pitched the system to Time. Since then, the National Rifle Assocition has bought a system, which it uses to mobilize members. It can record a message and send a voice broadcast to tens of thousands of members within minutes.

The U.S. Senate uses InfoXchange to send 7 million pages of faxes a year, Casazza says.

Other Digital Image clients include The Gartner Group, an information technology consulting company, and Caterpillar Corp.

InfoXchange, Casazza says, discourages its clients from using the technology to randomly bombard people with unwanted faxes. They instruct clients that the InfoXchange will help them refine lists of people who want to be called or contacted.

By doing a broadcast, InfoXchange can help a company clean up its contact list by determining which numbers have been changed or are duplicates.

``People are getting annoyed with the amount of junk faxes and if you're perceived to be one of the people sending them,'' Casazza says, ``you are not somebody they want to do business with.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

NHAT MYER

The Virginian-Pilot

James Casazza and Michael Vernon...

TEXT GRAPHIC

[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]

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