| DIGITAL EQUIPMENT, SUNSOFT AND XEROX FORM A STRATEGIC ALLIANCE TO
DELIVER PLATFORM INDEPENDENT PRINTING SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS TO THE
INDUSTRY
Novell and Xerox to ensure interoperability with NetWare Distributed
Print Services
ROCHESTER, N.Y., September 12, 1995 -- Digital Equipment Corp., SunSoft
Inc. and Xerox Corporation today announced a strategic alliance the
intent of which is to give any user access to any printer, anywhere in
the enterprise and simplify the complex task of company-wide print
management.
The group is developing Printxchange, the computer industry's
first platform-independent network printing service that is designed to
become an open architectural foundation on which to build print-related
applications and services. Built on existing industry standards,
Printxchange can reduce network printing administrative and support
costs and make it easy for other companies to build conforming printers
and other value added products that span mixed computing platforms.
Because Printxchange will be bundled into existing products, customers
will not pay additional cost for the software.
Printxchange makes managing networked printing easier by
allowing system administrators to conduct trouble shooting and capacity
reporting from a remote location. Printxchange includes the
application programming interfaces (APIs) and portability libraries
that printer manufacturers, system vendors, independent software
vendors (ISVs) and system integrators will use to develop and bring to
market services and applications that take the pain and mystery out
of printing. Printxchange enables applications such as those that might
deliver detailed print job status information immediately to the user
upon sending a print job; automatically forwarding a user^Rs print job
to an alternate printer to avoid print delays or even valuable tools
CIOs may wish to use to quantify the cost of printing, such as a cost
accounting program that will notify the user of the cost of a print job
once it is sent and upon completion of the job, export the cost data to
an accounting application automatically charging the appropriate
department.
Printxchange will first be available for the UNIX operating
system. Digital and SunSoft will incorporate Printxchange into Digital
UNIX and SunSoft Solaristm and Xerox will ensure its production
publishing, production printing and desktop printers are Printxchange
compatible. Because Printxchange is based on ISO 10175 Distributed
Print Application (DPA), it will be able to integrate with other
standards-based print services. For example, Novell and Xerox will
work together to ensure interoperability between NetWare Distributed
Print Services (NDPS), which is another ISO DPA print system, and
Printxchange.
As additional companies join or work with the alliance,
Printxchange will support other printers, networks and operating
systems. Eastman Kodak Company today announced that its Office Imaging
Division will be working with the alliance to ensure that their
highly-featured printer and copier-printer products take full advantage
of the capabilities of Printxchange.
Printxchange Interoperability Laboratory
The three companies believe that a limited level of
interoperability is achievable through compliance to standards. That
is why current printing software and hardware does not take advantage
of the current client/server distributed computing paradigm. The group
feels the only way this complex problem can be solved and common print
services can exist is through cooperative development and exhaustive
testing.
Administered by Xerox and jointly equipped, funded and staffed
by Digital, SunSoft and Xerox, a Printxchange Interoperability
Laboratory, located in El Segundo, Calif., is already in operation and
will ensure system integration, testing, interoperability verification
and product support. The lab is equipped to simulate a variety of
mixed vendor client/server printer and network system configurations
and will be available to system integrators, system and printer vendors
and other companies for remote or on-site compatibility testing.
The Alliance
Digital, SunSoft and Xerox all have been involved in the
creation of industry print standards such POSIX 1387.4, ISO 10175 DPA
and the X/Open Print System Interoperability Specification (PSIS). In
fact, the two principal authors of the ISO 10175 DPA standard, Stan
McConnell and Tom Hastings, were employees of Xerox and Digital
Equipment Corporation respectively, during its development and Bob
Herriot, a SunSoft employee, is the author and editor of the
X/Open PSIS. The three founding companies have been working together
on Printxchange for the past 18 months.
"This strategic alliance is more than just lip service," said
John Dunkle, president, Workgroup Strategic Services Inc. "Most
companies have printers from multiple vendors and need management
technology that supports all of their products. The architectural
design of Printxchange, the opportunity for value-add products by the
industry but perhaps more importantly, the collaboration and commitment
I've seen among Xerox, Digital and SunSoft is what will solve this
critical document distribution and print management problem."
Printxchange Modules
Printxchange will consist of three distinct system software
modules: a client program that initiates print system requests; a
spooler that operates on print system requests and stores data to be
printed; and a print supervisor that operates on print system requests
as well as controls an output device.
The Document Company, Xerox, with more than a decade of
experience in distributed computing print services from research and
development conducted at its Palo Alto Research Center, is contributing
its vast understanding of printing technology and has been designated
the licensing arm of the alliance. Xerox is responsible for developing
the Printxchange spooler and client including developing, publishing
and supporting Printxchange application programming interfaces (APIs),
command line interfaces (CLIs) and graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
With expertise in open client/server networks and work on the DECprint
architecture, Digital is providing the print supervisor for
Printxchange. Digital is also applying the results of 15 years of work
on Open VMS print systems in Printxchange. SunSoft is contributing a
bi-directional gateway between Printxchange and the existing UNIX print
systems (lp/lpr). SunSoft has been extending the benefits of
distributed computing worldwide with Solaris and its Open Network
Computing (ONC) components for more than a decade and brings its
understanding of the distributed computing market and ONC expertise.
Printxchange Initial Release
Current plans call for Printxchange to be available for Solaris
and Digital UNIX mid-year 1996. It will support Macintosh and PC
clients through gateway software such as Digital^Rs Pathworks,
SunSoft's PC-NFS and other third-party software. Xerox, HP, Digital
and Sun printers will be supported in this initial release, along with
printers from other printer manufacturers whose support from
Printxchange will be announced shortly.
Novell NDPS Gateway
As stated earlier Xerox and Novell will develop a gateway
between Printxchange running in the UNIX environment and NDPS running
in the NetWare environment. This gateway will allow bi-directional
communication between users and administrators in one environment and
printers in the other environments. The gateway meets the objectives of
Printxchange by extending the benefits beyond the UNIX environment.
Since most large companies have a heterogeneous network environment,
including NetWare, end users at a PC running NetWare will be able to
gain access to printing capabilities on a UNIX network and line of
business applications can easily extend document creation to PCs or
office networks. Similarly, document production can be more easily
distributed to branch offices or remote sites.
"This announcement represents what I believe is the next wave
of the computing industry," said John Lopiano, president, Xerox
Production Systems division, Xerox Corporation. "The first wave was
computer systems, the second wave was network and desktop systems and
the third wave is document systems and services. This print service is
one of many scalable and interoperable document services that Xerox
will bring to market by partnering with industry leaders."
"This print service is the right print solution for moving
mainframe applications to a Digital UNIX-based client/server
environment," said Jeb Hurley, acting vice president of Digital's
printers and supplies line of business. "Current UNIX print systems
do not have the features and capabilities needed for
'bet-your-business' kinds of applications. This print service will
span the range from department to enterprise. In addition, the print
service's open interfaces and protocols allow operation in
heterogeneous environments, enabling organizations to better leverage
existing investments in hardware and software."
"SunSoft brought client/server computing with Solaris to
enterprises to effectively create data and documents in a distributed
manner. Now we are bringing true enterprise wide printing to
effectively manage and distribute these document-based assets," said
Steve MacKay, vice president and general manager of SunSoft"s Solaris
Products Group. "With the addition of Printxchange to Solaris,
SunSoft continues to improve on its leadership role in providing
networked solutions for information management in heterogeneous
environments."
"NetWare Distributed Print Services provides users with
bi-directional communications, easier management and access to network
print resources," said Richard King, executive vice president and
general manager, Novell"s Systems Group. "By working with Xerox to
provide the gateway to Printxchange, we are ensuring that UNIX users
have access to Novell's print services and that NetWare users have
access to print services in the UNIX environment."
SunSoft, Digital and Xerox believe that Printxchange will
become pervasive in the industry and are actively seeking companies who
are interested in joint development partnerships and/or
licensing/support agreements. Xerox has been designated the licensing
agent for the alliance and is actively seeking system integrators,
printer manufacturers and network and systems vendors that wish to
ensure interoperability with Printxchange. Companies interested may
contact the following people:
Digital Howard Lev 508-467-7791 [email protected]
Xerox John Grant 310-333-3665 [email protected]
SunSoft Brian Sutphin 415-336-3443 [email protected]
Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open
client/server solutions from personal computers to integrated worldwide
information systems. Digital's Intel and Alpha platforms, storage,
networking, software and services, together with industry-focused
solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in
today's global marketplace.
The Document Company, Xerox is the leader in providing
world-class document processing products, systems and services. Xerox
copiers, duplicators, electronic printers, optical scanners, facsimile
machines, networks, digital publishing machines, and related products,
software and supplies are marketed in more than 130 countries.
SunSoft, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a
subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., with offices worldwide. SunSoft's
charter is to design, market, sell and support the industry's
highest-quality software environment to enable businesses to gain a
competitive advantage through information systems. SunSoft delivers a
suite of solutions that easily and cost-effectively connect, integrate
and manage large enterprise environments. The products are licensed by
SunSoft delivers a suite of solutions that easily and cost-effectively
connect, integrate and manage large enterprise environments. The
products are licensed by SunSoft and distributed through major computer
manufacturers and resellers worldwide. SunSoft's World Wide Web
address is http://www.sun.com/sunsoft
Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems Inc. All other trademarks
are acknowledged.
Editor's Contacts:
Xerox Corp. SunSoft, Inc. Digital
Equipment
Corp.
Laurie Riedman Diane McGary Kathy Wilson
Riedman Communications SunSoft, Inc. The Weber Group
Phone: 716.396-3100 Phone: 415.336.1379 Phone:617.520-7060
email: [email protected]
Editor's Note: Printxchange logos in electronic format can be obtained
by contacting one of the editor's contacts. This press release and a
white paper are also available on Xerox's World-wide Web home page:
http://www.xerox.com
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