Company To Show Portal-based Print App For iPhone

A Rochester, N.Y.-based solution provider and software developer has built a proof-of-concept iPhone portal page that would allow Web-based printing, workflow and document management over the Apple device, through a Web page that is built to carry the same look and feel as Apple's phone-and-Internet device.

Rochester Software Associates, which has partnerships with document companies including Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta and others, said Friday that it will display the technology during an upcoming conference in Chicago. The company has designed an iPhone-optimized front end to a central reprographic depository (CRD) application for the Web (WebCRD), that could provide remote access to an enterprises document management system.

Apple's iPhone provides almost full-blown Web access and a number of applications, as well as a Safari Web browser, and provides complete access to many Web applications. However, the iPhone lacks support for Adobe Flash technology, and does not provide native print capability on the device itself. Rochester Software's technology would provide a sort of workaround to that limitation within an enterprise, by giving iPhone client access to Web-based document management functions -- including print-ordering functions, said Todd Bernhard, director of marketing for Rochester Software.

"It is a proof of concept, and we want to show it and talk to people about it," Bernhard said. It will demonstrate the technology at the Graph Expo Conference from Sept. 9 through Sept. 12 in Chicago.

It's been an up-and-down week for the iPhone, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs announcing the company was on track to sell 1 million iPhones in its first quarter of availability, and the company's decision to drop iPhone prices from $599 to $399 per unit for the holiday season. However, many early purchasers who paid the higher price raised a stink at the news, prompting Jobs to issue a formal apology and an offer to give back $100 (through a mechanism yet to be determined) to people who paid the higher price.