Mission, Goals & Objectives

The MIPC is a non-profit industry association founded in 2004 by Canon, Epson and HP, leading companies in home photo printing. Our mission is:

• To promote and support the development of implementation guidelines enabling direct printing of images and other content between Mobile Terminals and Home Printers;
• To promote such guidelines and other solutions worldwide to ensure that a broad spectrum of products and services is developed;
• To ensure compliance of products and services through high-quality and unambiguous deliverables; and
• To create high customer awareness of, demand for, and confidence in products designed in compliance with our deliverables.

The MIPC is working to enable mobile printing solutions by fostering collaboration across the hardware, software and wireless technologies involved in mobile imaging and home printing. We are basing our work on existing and accepted connectivity standards: Bluetooth™, IrDA ® and WiFi ® for a wireless solution, PictBridge as a wired solution, and printing directly from memory cards.

According to a report by InfoTrends, camera phone users are expected to print over five billion of the total images taken in 2004, and that number is forecasted to grow to 37.2 billion by 2008, when it is estimated that 85% of all mobile phones sold will feature an embedded camera*. As camera-phone resolution and features such as optical zoom improve, and new intelligent applications enhance the devices' functionality, more images will be captured, shared, saved and printed. The MIPC will work to ensure that printing is as easy and reliable as possible.

*InfoTrends, 2004 Worldwide Camera Phone and Photo Messaging Forecast, March 2004