REDMOND, USA: As part of its customer-focused commitment to interoperability, Microsoft Corp. announced that it has contributed its Web services protocol specification for consumer scanning peripherals -- Microsoft Scan Service Definition Version 1.0 (WS-Scan) -- to the Printer Working Group (PWG), a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO).

The contribution of the WS-Scan protocol specification will make it easier for partner companies to make their products interoperable across multiple platforms and deliver new functionality and manageability improvements to customers.

WS-Scan provides a common framework for describing and sharing information between Windows Vista and consumer scanning peripherals. As part of its continuing efforts to work with partners to provide innovative Windows-based solutions and the best set of experiences to meet customers' specific needs, Microsoft built upon the initial efforts of Xerox and collaborated with several leading companies in the printing ecosystem to develop the WS-Scan protocol specification. As a result of submitting this specification to the PWG, these solutions will now be available to any platform that companies need to meet their customers' interoperability requirements.

"This collaboration is a response to customer and industry interest in having the WS-Scan Service Schema mapped directly to the PWG Scan semantic model," said Jack Mayo, group program manager with the Windows Experience team at Microsoft. "The benefit to customers will be making great scanning solutions for Windows-based interoperable with other platforms. The ability to make interoperable solutions will also greatly reduce the development burden on the PWG partner companies."

"Xerox has a long history of developing innovative technologies that help our customers do great work in new and exciting ways," said Richard Dastin, senior vice president and general manager in the Xerox Office Group. "Working with Microsoft to promote interoperability is a great demonstration of that continued commitment, and we look forward to future collaborations for the benefit of our customers."

Member organizations of the PWG include printer and multifunction device manufacturers, print server developers, operating system providers, projector manufacturers, and print management application developers. The group is chartered to develop industry standards that make printers and other imaging devices, and the applications and operating systems supporting them, work better together.

"Microsoft's WS-Scan specification is a significant contribution to the Printer Working Group. It will greatly help us in our effort for industrywide standardization of networked multifunction device behaviors and capability representation," said Jerry Thrasher, PWG chair and senior standards engineer for Lexmark International Inc. "The PWG Semantic Model, a widely adopted model of network printer behaviors and capabilities, is being extended to include multifunction devices. Maintaining a consistent model for behaviors and capabilities of multifunction devices within the industry not only improves interoperability across operating environments, but also helps reduce implementation costs for device manufacturers."

Windows Vista includes device drivers for a variety of increasingly powerful printers and multifunction devices that support innovations in graphics, networking and imaging. There are currently nearly 77,000 devices and hardware components certified for use with Windows Vista. Microsoft is contributing WS-Scan to the PWG to help improve interoperability and make the connectivity process easier and more seamless for consumers.