Carl-Uno
---Press Release Draft
Version 1.05 April 21, 1997
Major Companies Unite to Deliver Internet Printing Standard
IETF Creates an Internet Printing Protocol Working Group to Deliver New Open Standard
The Printer Working Group, a coalition of key worldwide printer and print server vendors, today announced a major effort to establish standards that will make printing on the internet easier and more productive.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has chartered the Internet Printing Protocol working group with the creation of a single standard interface for printing on the internet. Built on existing Internet technologies, the Internet Printing Protocol, or IPP, will be quickly deployed to provide easy to use printing interfaces across a broad range of printing systems and operating systems which will inter-operate using the protocol.
"Just as there exists a standard protocol for browsing documents on the World Wide Web, it is critical that key printing industry players implement a standard protocol for submitting documents over the Internet to remote printers. With active participation by major printer, browser, and networking companies, the IPP Working Group is on a fast track to provide such a solution," said Charles LeCompte, President, Lyra Research Inc.
Currently, there is no standard for Internet print job submission and in order to meet a wide variety of customer printing needs, printer vendors today must support a number of different protocols and variants. There is a need for a single protocol which can cover the most common requirements for printing on the Internet and intranets, including locating a printer and viewing its status and capabilities, as well as submitting, monitoring and canceling a print job.
"This new working group will define a new industry-standard print submission and control protocol allowing end users to submit and control print jobs over the Internet and across enterprise intranets," said Don Wright, Chair of the Printer Working Group and Lexmark International's Manager of Strategic Alliances. "We are fortunate to have all the major printing companies participating in this effort including Adobe, Canon, Dataproducts, Dazel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Kyocera, Lexmark, Microsoft, Netscape, Novell, Osicom/DPI, SDSU/Start Tech, QMS, Ricoh, Sharp, Sun, Tektronix, TrueSpectra, Underscore and Xerox.
The Internet Printing Protocol is expected to be a client/server protocol that allows the server to be either a separate print server or a printer with embedded networking and server capabilities. The focus of this effort is optimized for printers, but it could also be applied to other output devices
The following examples illustrate some of the capabilities made possible by widespread deployment of the protocol:
+ A researcher wants to print a technical report, stored on a public WEB server, on a shared departmental printer. The researcher locates a suitable printer using a web browser and then submits the print request to the printing system by providing the URL of the document. The document is retrieved and printed by the printing system which then notifies the researcher.
+ An independent insurance agent wants to print a copy of a report on a public printer at the home office of one of the insurance companies that she represents. She then chooses print from her application's file menu, and enters the URL of the home office's public printer. The request is transmitted to the printing system in the home office and printed.
Today, printing as described above is often done using fax. IPP will significantly reduce expenses incurred by faxing documents by providing a cost-effective and reliable way to print documents such as invoices, schedules and forms directly to remote printers, often without long distance telephone charges. I don’t like this paragraph.
COMMENT: I think IPP is a long way from eliminating FAX, especially its worldwide use and don’t forget Xerox is in the FAX business. Try to drop it or as a second choice insert something in one of the above examples.
"Users will be able to print to printers anywhere within their organization, independent of locations, and can just as easily send print jobs to customers, partners etc. without the need to use e-mail or other distribution methods before documents are printed", said Carl-Uno Manros, co-chair of the IPP working group and Principal Engineer with Xerox Corporation.
"We are building upon the long, successful experiences of this group developing printing job submission and management standards," added Steve Zilles, co-chair of the IPP working group and Manager of Standards for Adobe.
History of the IPP Working Group --------------------------------
Chartered by the PWG, the Internet Printing Protocol working group was formed in November 1996 and began developing the necessary standards for print job submission and monitoring for the Internet based on early submissions by IBM, Novell and Xerox.
After a successful "Birds of a Feather" session at the December 1996 IETF meeting in San Jose, CA, this group was also chartered by the IETF on March 6, 1997. The PWG earlier developed the SNMP Printer MIB (RFC1759) and is currently working on a Job Monitoring MIB; both are IETF projects. Representatives from Adobe, IBM, Lexmark, Novell, Sun, and Xerox act as chairs, authors, and editors for the IPP project. Internet drafts covering requirements, model and semantics, directory schema, security, and the protocol have been submitted to the IETF and will continue to be revised and become Request for Comments (RFCs). The first formal meeting of the IPP working group at an IETF meeting was held in Memphis, TN on April 8th.
How to get involved -------------------
The IPP Working Group is open to any company or individual interested in developing new standards for Internet printing. The group meets regularly in person and on telephone conference calls. More information about the group and specific technical details are available over the Internet in the following ways:
General Discussion e-mail distribution list: ipp@pwg.org To Subscribe to the e-mail distribution list: ipp-request@pwg.org Archive: ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/ Web-site: http://www.pwg.org/ipp
About the IETF --------------
The Internet Engineering Task Force (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. It 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.org.
###
Press Inquiries:
PWG Chair: Don Wright, Lexmark International, 606-232-4808 IPP Chairs: Carl-Uno Manros, Xerox Corporation, 310-333-8273 Steve Zilles, Adobe Inc., 408-536-4766 +++
Carl-Uno Manros Principal Engineer - Advanced Printing Standards - Xerox Corporation 701 S. Aviation Blvd., El Segundo, CA, M/S: ESAE-231 Phone +1-310-333 8273, Fax +1-310-333 5514 Email: manros@cp10.es.xerox.com
Carl-Uno Manros Principal Engineer - Advanced Printing Standards - Xerox Corporation 701 S. Aviation Blvd., El Segundo, CA, M/S: ESAE-231 Phone +1-310-333 8273, Fax +1-310-333 5514 Email: manros@cp10.es.xerox.com