Subject: IPP> Press Release - Final

From: Don Wright <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Apr 97 18:09:05 EDT

The final version of the press release is now available
on the ftp service in the usual 3 formats:

ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/ipp/press-releases/press7.doc
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/ipp/press-releases/press7.pdf
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/ipp/press-releases/press7.txt

I have attached both the .txt and the .doc versions to
this message.  According to Carl-Uno, Xerox's PR agency will
be releasing this on Tuesday.  Carl-Uno, could you update
us if this changes?  I expect the PR agency will change the
formatting a little but the words should remain the same.

BTW: I did fix a couple of typos and changed "printing 
companies" to "printer, printing and print server companies"
to better describe us since we all provide a variety of
printing oriented services.

Thanks to all!

Don

*************************************************************
* Don Wright ([email-masked])        Lexmark International *
* Manager                               Strategic Alliances *
* 740 New Circle Rd                     Phone: 606-232-4808 *
* Lexington, KY  40511                    Fax: 606-232-6740 *
*************************************************************
Press Release - FINAL
April 25, 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 printer, printing, and print server companies participating in this effort including 
Adobe, Canon, Dataproducts, DAZEL, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Kyocera, Lexmark, 
Microsoft, Netscape Communications Corporation, Novell, Osicom/DPI, QMS, Ricoh, 
SDSU/Start Tech, Sharp, Sun Microsystems, 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 
details are available over the Internet in the following ways:

General Discussion e-mail distribution list: [email-masked]
To Subscribe to the e-mail distribution list: [email-masked]
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