At 05:41 AM 6/13/2000 +0900, you wrote:
>Dear Shockey-san
Maeda-san... so good to hear from you !
>I have not see the meeting report of qualdocs at Adelaide.
>Have you post it?
No I've been terribly remiss.. I'll have it up shortly. My sincerest apologies.
>Are there any change in the charter resulting from Adelaide meeting?
No... same as always.
>We should have 4th BOF continuing the discussion when WG is not organized
>at Pittsburg.
I would be happy to schedule another QUALDOCS BOF if there is consensus on
the list but I must admit I'm not sure what it would accomplish.
The problem is internal to the IETF... the Application Area is still
overloaded and I'm making the assumption based on conversations with our
Area Directors that some other groups need to die off first before QUALDOCS
could possibly start.
Its not that there is no interest in our subject, far from it, we have had
well attended BOF's and much consensus that the work would be valuable and
productive....but...
Of course there is press reports from time to time that seem to get the
bigger picture....
##########################
NEW YORK, Jun 13, 2000 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- To understand why predictions
of a paperless society have not come true, just take a look at the fax.
Despite new technologies that make it easier to send information
electronically,
sales of fax machines continue to soar.
But analysts warn that the popularity of fax machines could wane in the years
ahead, thanks to a nascent technology that enables computer files to be
transmitted over the Internet directly to a printer.
For now, "a lot of people still like seeing the paper go through the fax
machine" to know that their document went across," said David Haueter, a senior
analyst at market research firm Dataquest.
In 1999, more than 6.6 million fax machines were sold, an increase of 16.5
percent from the year before, according to San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest. By
2004, the number of sheet-fed fax machines sold is anticipated to rise to more
than 8.4 million, during which time the average cost of a fax machine is
expected to fall by more than a third, from $240 from $364.
Home offices and small businesses, attracted by lower costs and faster print
speeds, accounted for more than half of all units sold in 1999, said Haueter.
"A lot of people go into a store to buy a cordless phone and for a few bucks
more they can get a fax machine and use it as a phone too," he said.
Aside from sheet-fed fax machines, the frenzy is also being fueled by fax
software for personal computers and heavy-duty machinery found in offices that
bundle printing, faxing and copying functions into one big beige box.
There are drawbacks to faxing, most notably the costs incurred from
long-distance telephone charges and the loss of digital quality when documents
are sent across traditional phone lines. But not every business owner in this
brave new world feels it is necessary to be on the cutting-edge of
technology in
order to be successful.
"I like to have the paper copy, personally," says Herbert H. Rozoff, president
of the Chicago-based Herbert H. Rozoff Public Relations. "I'll make
notations on
it and route it to somebody else in the firm ... or make six copies and send it
out rather than e-mail."
When given the option of fax or e-mail, the overwhelming majority of Rozoff's
clients choose fax, he said. To handle such demand, Rozoff had to hire an
outside firm to send thousands of pages of press releases to his clients every
month.
But analysts say fax machines could fall out of favor as a new technology being
developed makes it possible to send high-quality printouts electronically as
fast and as easy as it is to send e-mail.
A consortium of printer manufacturers is developing a standard, known as the
Internet Printing Protocol, that will allow businesses like Rozoff's to send
high-quality documents over the Internet to a specific printer with its own
Internet address.
"The attempt of IPP is do high-quality printing from my desktop to your printer
with exactly the same quality as my printer," said Don Wright, director of
strategic and technical alliances at Lexmark International Group Inc. and chair
of the Printer Working Group, which oversees the development of IPP.
Tim Bajarin, president of the Campbell, Calif.-base technology consulting firm
Creative Strategies Inc. said the printing protocol holds promise. "Ten to 15
years from now there's no question that fax machines could go by the wayside."
Those familiar with the protocol say its completion is at least seven years
away. Once the protocol is available, the days of formatting documents sent as
e-mail attachments and then printing them out will be over.
More importantly, Bajarin said, computer users who lack an arsenal of word
processing and graphics software and cannot format certain documents for
printing will be able to avoid such hassles in the first place.
Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system will support IPP services, and other
companies, such as Novell Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and International
Business
Machines Corp. are creating software to handle it in the future. Lexmark,
Hewlett-Packard Co. and Xerox Corp. are currently developing printers that can
run experimental versions of IPP.
Some companies are testing the technology internally, but analysts say
widespread printing over the Internet will only gain popularity when
senders can
be assured that documents delivered across networks will be secure and
receivers
have ways to restrict printer access to people with passwords.
Pending federal legislation that would set national standards for electronic
signatures and records and give them the same legal validity as written
contracts and documents may also help.
Bajarin said Internet-ready printers will be a major advance for businesses and
consumers when it comes to sending digital quality documents easily and
inexpensively.
There is only one real downside, he said: "We're just not getting away any time
soon from that piece of paper that we can crinkle in our hands."
---On the Net: Printer Working Group at http://www.pwg.org
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Please Note New Contact Information:
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