Printing Solutions for Era of Ubiquitous Networks
Hirohiko Nakazato, Takaaki Hosoda, Kuniaki Fujisawa · 2005
Connections to networks will become available anywhere at any time as the advent of a ubiquitous era is at hand. Printers in this era will no longer be limited to their existing role of only providing a printing function, but functions that enable the printing of particular data from a whole range of data as the needs arise will be required. Therefore, it is necessary to enable printers to extract the necessary data from multiple applications in order to realize speedy document processing using data available within and outside the company. Furthermore, a digital multi-functional product (hereinafter referred to as “MFP”) equipped with a scanner will not only print documents but also convert scanned image data into a file format, such as PDF or TIFF and send them by email, providing document solutions in collaboration with other applications. We at Oki Data Corporation have succeeded in commercializing color printers and MFPs that use tandem engines. These are implemented in general office environments where they are widely used as shared printers or MFPs in network environments, color printing of various documents as well as securing a position as document portals 1) . Printers and MFPs are expected to fill the role of not only “peripheral devices for printing” but also “simple to operate data processing equipment for a wide range of uses”. This paper introduces printing solutions for ubiquitous networks, a network technology of the printer with built in wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b/g) functions, as well as an automatic network connecting technology.