Subject: IPP> ADM - Suggested rewrite of the press release

From: Carl-Uno Manros <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 12:58:51 PDT

Here is the Press Release text after having been trough our PR section.

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: [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
+++

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: [email-masked]

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: [email-masked]