+1 to this. I wish there were a unified standard for networking scanners at all, actually. The majority of business scanners have arcane features to Email, FTP, or SMB-share the documents they scan. SMB is the usually only thing that invites practical use on a small business network, and the scanner's implementation of the protocol is almost always poor. I've encountered $5k copiers that could only copy to SMB shares on Windows XP, mysteriously failing for Server 2003 or Server 2008. I don't even want to think about trying it with Samba.
Networking a copier is no afternoon job, either. I've seen businesses where setting up their copier on Ethernet was such a bother that they just hook up the fax line instead and fax everything to their own eFax number whenever they need a PDF scan of a document.
My dream is that I could plug in an IP address/hostname to any scanner and I press Scan. The scanner contacts a daemon running on the host on a well-known port and protocol (if it's the first time, the host presents a dialog or something to confirm pairing) and then the file goes shoop over the network into a folder of my choosing.
Why does this not exist! In a networked world, scanners need to be more like faxes, except there is no fax equivalent on the TCP/IP level.
I want something less complicated than that. I want to push the Scan button, open my web browser, select the scanner from it's list of Bonjour (aka DNS-SD) discovered web services and then browse, save and delete scans from it's web interface.
Exactly - combine the 2 and you might finally kill off the dreaded fax machine (which despite being more arcane than the floppy disk, stubbornly refuses to die)
My parents were trying to get a fax machine working over a VOIP line the other day - a 19.2K modem on a 20MBit DSL connection. Makes you cry a little when you think about it.
Heads up: Fax won't work over plain VOIP because of the audio compression; it's unlikely they have a gateway available on their network that will do T.38 FOIP, they'd need a real POTS line to send a fax (or use one of the many internet fax services).
Networking a copier is no afternoon job, either. I've seen businesses where setting up their copier on Ethernet was such a bother that they just hook up the fax line instead and fax everything to their own eFax number whenever they need a PDF scan of a document.
My dream is that I could plug in an IP address/hostname to any scanner and I press Scan. The scanner contacts a daemon running on the host on a well-known port and protocol (if it's the first time, the host presents a dialog or something to confirm pairing) and then the file goes shoop over the network into a folder of my choosing.
Why does this not exist! In a networked world, scanners need to be more like faxes, except there is no fax equivalent on the TCP/IP level.