TMCnet News

Panasonic Now Has 40 Office Products Which are IPv6 Compatible
[February 02, 2006]

Panasonic Now Has 40 Office Products Which are IPv6 Compatible


TMCnet Associate Editor

Electronics giant
Panasonic demonstrated some of its new IPv6-compatible office products - including fax machines, scanners and printers - during the IPv6 Summit held in early December in Reston, Va.



Even though IPv6 is still being developed, Panasonic already has more than 40 IPv6-compatible products available. In a recent
news release, the company said it is making its office devices IPv6 capable ahead of time because it wants to stay ahead the game – but also because of the types of business customers it serves.

“One of the reasons why Panasonic got a jump on IPv6 is that it markets business products used in environments requiring the highest level of innovation and security, from MFPs in the White House to notebook computers used by U.S. military personnel in combat,” the news release states.


Panasonic was a sponsor and participant at the IPv6 Summit, which attracted more than 600 attendees from technology companies as well as senior military, government and political leaders. Key topics explored included the development and implementation of next generation Internet technologies, applications and policies, as well as security, mobility and transition/testing.

Among the IPv6-ready products which Panasonic demonstrated were its C3 color MFP series and DP-CL22 color laser printer.

Panasonic’s Dan Hogan, president of the Panasonic Home & Environment Company in Secaucus, N.J. (but director of the company’s research laboratory in Boston at the time of the summit), delivered a keynote focusing on the logistics of creating a secure, networked office. Other prominent keynote speakers included Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA); Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani, Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Dr. Peter Freeman, assistant director of the National Science Foundation.

Hogan said while gateways, voice-enabled products and networked cameras are critical products to the IPv6 development cycle for Panasonic, peripheral products including MFPs and printers are equally vital to strategic planning.

“The concept behind the secure IPv6 networked office is to allow both our communication and imaging office automation products to communicate over the same physical network,” Hogan told the audience. “The technology strategy is directed to specific product targets like IP-PBX, web meeting systems, secure plain-paper copiers or multifunction devices, using common technology platforms. In all cases, IPv6 is central to the strategy.”

“Although the federal government has targeted 2008 for implementation of IPv6 by all of its agencies, Panasonic has been developing IPv6 business machines since 1998,” Hogan said.

As a result of the Internet’s explosive growth in recent years, the world is running out of IP addresses. To solve this, IPv6 is being developed to replace the current protocol. Upgrading to IPv6 will not only make trillions of new addresses available, it will also enable thousands of new operational applications and business opportunities.

Panasonic claims it began configuring its line of office products to make them IPv6 compatible seven years ago.

For more information, visit
http://www.panasonic.com/office.

Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]