Patent ID: 8085417

Claim:
A multifunction peripheral unit that is connected to a user terminal and a plurality of devices via a network, comprising: a list transmission section that creates a list of devices connected to the network and transmits the list of devices to the user terminal; a device information reception section that receives information on a device selected by a user from the user terminal constituting a transmission destination for the list of devices; a processing function list transmission section that creates a list of processing functions that can be executed by the device on the basis of the received device information and transmits the list of the processing functions to the user terminal; a processing function information reception section that receives information on a processing function selected by the user from the user terminal constituting the transmission destination for the processing function list; an execution control section that controls the device to execute the processing function on the basis of the received device information and processing function information; an additional list transmission section that creates an additional list of devices that are necessary to execute the selected processing function when a different device from the selected device is further needed to execute the selected processing function and transmits the additional list of devices to the user terminal; and an additional device information reception section that receives information on a device additionally selected by the user from the user terminal constituting the transmission destination for the additional list of devices, wherein the execution control section controls the selected device and the additionally selected device to execute the selected processing function on the basis of the device information received by the device information reception section, the processing function information received by the processing function information reception section, and the additional device information received by the additional device information reception section.