The Printer Working Group and the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization today announced an alliance formalizing the PWG as a program of the IEEE-ISTO. Under the agreement, the IEEE-ISTO will provide the PWG with both an operational legal forum and support services to facilitate its day-to-day activities. The PWG is the second industry group to organize within the IEEE-ISTO, formed in January 1999.

The PWG has been actively developing printer industry standards since 1991 (pre-1993 as the Network Printing Alliance) as an unincorporated alliance among printer manufacturers, printer server developers, operating systems providers, network operating system providers, network connectivity vendors, and print management application developers. The group is chartered to develop the standards necessary to make printers and the applications and operating systems supporting them work together better.

"The IEEE-ISTO presented the PWG with a strategic alternative to incorporation, and an excellent complement to continue our support of printer-related standards activities. As a program of the IEEE-ISTO, the PWG will maintain its unique identity, procedures, and flexibility in directions and actions," said Don Wright, chairman of the PWG and director of strategic and technical alliances for Lexmark International. "Additionally the IEEE-ISTO provides the PWG with cost-effective support services and a stable forum to organize as we continue our efforts to develop and support implementable market-driven standards for printing."

The PWG has supported the development of printer-related standards within the IEEE, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other standards bodies. These include the following:

• IEEE - Parallel Port Standard (also known as IEEE Std. 1284), as well as printing solutions for IEEE Std. 1394 (also known as "FireWire")
• IETF Printer, Job and Finishing MIBs (Management Information Base), and the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP)

The group currently has five active working groups chartered to develop such standards as the Printer MIB, IPP, Job Monitoring Project, Universal Printer Description Format and the 1394 Printer Working Group standards.

"The Printer Working Group is exactly the type of industry group the IEEE-ISTO was formed to facilitate. The IEEE-ISTO provides the PWG with the legal forum to operate and manage intellectual property, without the need to incorporate as an independent legal entity," said Andrew Salem, president and CEO of the IEEE-ISTO. "Additionally, we've custom tailored our menu of support services to enable the group's members to focus on the technical, rather than day-to-day administrative issues."

Participants at recent PWG meetings include representatives from the following companies: 2Wire Inc., Axis Communications AB, Canon Inc., Congruent Software, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, G3 NOVA Technology, Inc., Heidelberg Digital, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi Koki Imaging Solutions Inc., i-data Printing Solution, IBM, Kyocera Corporation, Lexmark International, Inc., Microsoft, NETsilicon, Inc. (DPI Imaging Division), Northlake Software, Inc., Novell Inc., Océ, Peerless Systems, QMS Inc., QualityLogic Inc., Samsung, Seiko Epson Corporation, Sharp, ShineSoft Systems, Underscore, Inc., Warp Nine Engineering, Xerox Corporation, and Xionics Document Technologies, Inc.. The IEEE-ISTO is a not-for-profit corporation offering industry groups an innovative and flexible operational forum and support services.

The IEEE-ISTO provides a forum not only to develop standards, but also to facilitate activities that support the implementation of standards in the marketplace. The organization is affiliated with the IEEE (http://www.ieee.org/) and the IEEE Standards Association (http://standards.ieee.org/).

For further information about the Printer Working Group visit http://www.pwg.org, or contact Don Wright, chairman, at +1-606-232-4808 or don@lexmark.com.

For additional information regarding the IEEE-ISTO visit http://www.ieee-isto.org, or contact Peter Lefkin, secretary treasurer and CFO, at 732-981-3434 or ieee-isto@ieee.org.