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The PWG has a legacy of developing standards that span a large segment of the printing industry. The Printer MIB, for example, has been adopted in devices ranging from low-price, low-speed network attached printers to very high speed production applications. The PWG Common Semantic Model, likewise, is leveraged by industry standards ranging from CIP4 to Bluetooth. One area of primary focus, the networked office device, has undergone a transformation from network printer to network MFD with an associated shift toward to a services oriented, fleet managed placement and operation model. This begs for new standards upon with to base new tools development to enable remote management of heterogenous fleets. The PWG is responding to this need, largely via the WIMS (Web-based Imaging Management Services) effort which includes extending the PWG Common Semantic Model to express the necessary device management elements.   WIMS presents the opportunity (and need) for the PWG to model more than just the printer, print job and document... but to grow our model to embrace a more complete imaging system including scan, fax, copy and finishing services. THIS IS A CALL FOR INTEREST IN FORMATION AND PARTICIPATION IN A FORMAL, MFD ORIENTED, PWG WORKING GROUP TO DEFINE A COMPLETE STANDARD IMAGING MODEL. I hope the industry will respond with a show of support for this effort. To create a CSIM working group we will need volunteer leadership and knowledgeable participants from across the industry. If, due to lack of bandwidth (in PWG and the industry) we cannot muster critical mass, the default approach will be for WIMS to develop a skeleton set of objects, enough to express the state and some metrics interesting to fleet management and billing (ex. number of scan impressions). We try not to clog up "pwg-announce" with long threads so I invite you to respond to me, personally and copy your response to "<a href=mailto:pwg@pwg.org>pwg@pwg.org</a>" where we welcome and encourage general discussion about goals and operation of the PWG. I look forward to your responses and I will plan a report on this topic and proposal for action during the PWG Plenary in Montreal August 18, 2004. ---------------------------------------------- Harry Lewis IBM STSM Chairman - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group http://www.pwg.org IBM Printing Systems http://www.ibm.com/printers 303-924-5337 ----------------------------------------------