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Wednesday April 9 5:45 PM EDT

Novell and Industry Partners Meet to Develop Open Standard for Internet Printing

Networking Leader Helps Advance Internet Standards at IETF-Chartered Meetings

PROVO, Utah, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Novell Inc continues to play a major role in advancing open Internet standards by collaborating with industry leaders to develop the Internet Print Protocol (IPP), a fully defined industry standard for printing across intranets and the Internet. Novell helped drive the creation of a formal working group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that is meeting for the first time this week to discuss the new printing standard. Developed initially by Novell, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Xerox, the IPP will make printing in heterogeneous network environments much easier and standardize remote printing.

"The IPP is a significant piece of Novell's overall strategy to help customers make the transition to open Internet standards," said Glenn Ricart, chief technology officer of Novell. "By working together with industry leaders including IBM, Sun, and Xerox, we are bringing structure to the Internet to make it a serious business tool."

Through this new working group, Novell and leading printer and software vendors will establish a set of industry-standard protocols for submission and control of print jobs over the Internet and across enterprise intranets. Companies participating in these efforts include Adobe, Canon, Dataproducts, Dazel, Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Kyocera, Lexmark, Microsoft, Netscape, QMS, Ricoh, Sharp, Sun, Tektronix and Xerox. The working group will submit the IPP to the IETF later this year for acceptance as an approved IETF standard. Novell will support these protocols in future versions of its networking products.

"A universal Internet printing standard would reduce our overall cost for network printing," said Mike Hicks, network systems engineer for the City of Tucson, Ariz. "We currently spend a significant amount of time configuring workstations to allow users to print to remote locations. In addition, our employees must print, then fax documents to the desired destination. An open standard would alleviate much of this work and should lower the overall cost of printers."

Novell's Leadership

Novell set the standard for high-quality printing with its market-leading network operating system. Through Novell Directory Services (NDS), network administrators realize an unparalleled ability to manage printers and printer set-up. By assisting in the creation of IPP, Novell demonstrates its commitment to extending this leadership to the Internet.

The IPP standard will alleviate a significant amount of time administrators now spend configuring user workstations to facilitate printing to remote sites, lowering overall network administration costs. With IPP, end users will be able to find any printer on the Internet, install it and print the desired document very easily. Users will receive a status report verifying successful completion of the job.

IPP can eliminate the need for faxing documents by providing a cost-effective and reliable way to print documents such as invoices, schedules and forms directly to remote printers. Instead of the costly and arduous process of printing, then faxing documents to branch offices, hotels and other remote locations, users will be able to print documents directly to printers anywhere on the Internet reliably and quickly, using common Internet connections.

The IPP Project

IPP is the result of several companies' efforts. Last fall, Novell and Xerox submitted a draft of a jointly developed Internet printing protocol, Lightweight Directory Printing Application (LDPA), to the IETF for review. In a parallel effort, IBM started working on a proposal for Internet printing using Web technology, known as HyperText Printing Protocol (HTPP). During subsequent meetings among leading printer vendors and manufacturers, it was decided to merge the Novell, IBM and Xerox efforts into the IPP project. The first IPP discussion group was held at the December 1996 IETF meeting, with participation from over 20 printer-related companies. This week's first meeting of the working group is taking place in Memphis, Tennessee.

About IETF

The IETF is a large international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. IETF is open to any interested individual. The actual technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups, which are organized by topic into several areas (e.g. routing, network management, security, etc.). Further information about the IETF can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/home.html.

About Novell

Founded in 1983, Novell is the world's leading provider of network software. The company offers a wide range of network solutions for distributed network, Internet, intranet and small-business markets. Novell education and technical support programs are the most comprehensive in the network computing industry. Information about Novell's complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.novell.com.

NOTE: Novell is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc. Novell Directory Services (NDS) is a trademark of Novell, Inc. All other company or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. SOURCE Novell Inc.

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