DMTF and Printer Working Group Announce Alliance Partnership; Leading Standards Bodies Join Forces for Simplified Management of Printers in the Enterprise.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF(R)), the organization leading the development and adoption of management standards for enterprise and Internet environments, and the Printer Working Group (PWG), the organization chartered to make printers and the applications and operating systems supporting them work together better, today announced that they have entered into an Alliance Partnership. The two organizations have a history of collaborating to ensure consistent approaches to printer management, and this agreement provides additional context for cooperation on printer management models and semantics.

Together, the groups will work to review and update the DMTF's Common Information Model (CIM) with input based on the latest Printer Management Information Base (MIB) and the PWG Common Semantic Model. By working in partnership on printer-related management semantics, the industry will benefit from streamlined development of products and services in this domain. In addition, alignment between these organizations will help facilitate better interoperability and enhanced functionality among printer management services and solutions.

"Printers certainly play an important role in the enterprise, and the PWG is the developer of the most widely implemented printer management standards in use today," said Winston Bumpus, president, DMTF. "We look forward to working even more closely with the PWG, which will help us ensure that our printer representations in CIM are in harmony with the developments of this key industry consortium."

"The DMTF is the leading developer of management standards for both enterprise and Internet environments, and it is beneficial for us to periodically align our standards," said Harry Lewis, chairman, PWG. "We're happy to formalize our long-standing relationship, which will result in better teamwork and faster response to the needs of the industry."

About the DMTF

With more than 3,000 active participants, the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF) is the industry organization leading the development of management standards and integration technology for enterprise and Internet environments. DMTF standards provide common management infrastructure components for instrumentation, control and communication in a platform-independent and technology neutral way. DMTF technologies include the Common Information Model (CIM), communication/control protocols like the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative, and core management services/utilities. The DMTF and Computerworld are co-owners of Enterprise Management World, the only IT management conference exclusively focused on distributed management technologies for the data center and communications infrastructure. Information about DMTF's standards and activities can be found at www.dmtf.org.

About The PWG

The Printer Working Group -- a Program of the IEEE-ISTO -- is a key consortium for development of printer, print services and imaging systems protocols and management standards. The PWG has developed a wide variety of management, printing protocol, presentation format, character repertoire, and web services standards related to imaging systems. Many PWG derived standards have been chartered or developed with organizations such as the IETF, W3C and Free Standards Group. The PWG develops and maintains a common semantic model for the industry, which is leveraged by related standards organizations in solutions ranging from hand-held, to office, to production printing. Information about the PWG's standards and activities can be found at www.pwg.org.