I have completed the changes discussed on today's conference
call. I have posted the .DOC and .PDF version on the server
as well as the .TXT version. The .PDF and .DOC versions more
accurately reflect the appearance of the release. The files
are:
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/press-releases/press6.docftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/press-releases/press6.pdfftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/press-releases/press6.txt
In order to keep this process from going on forever, I must
limit changes to:
1) Gross factual errors
2) Spelling or grammatical errors
3) Removal or addition of a company name
Don
++++
Press Release Draft
Version 1.06
April 23, 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, QMS, Ricoh, SDSU/Start Tech, 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 business analyst wants to print another company's financial report, stored
on
a public WEB server, on a shared departmental printer. The analyst 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.
IPP will provide a cost-effective and reliable way to print documents such as
reports,
invoices, schedules, and forms to remote printers which today are often sent
over long-
distance telephone lines using fax.
"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 8, 1997.
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 deta
ils are
available over the Internet in the following ways:
General Discussion e-mail distribution list: ipp at pwg.org
To Subscribe to the e-mail distribution list: ipp-request at 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
*************************************************************
* Don Wright (don at lexmark.com) Lexmark International *
* Manager Strategic Alliances *
* 740 New Circle Rd Phone: 606-232-4808 *
* Lexington, KY 40511 Fax: 606-232-6740 *
*************************************************************