Patent ID: 8826176

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for providing a service to a manipulation client upon receiving a request based on HTTP from a Web browser of the manipulation client via a network, comprising: at least a processor and memory, cooperating to run an application having a management function for a device on the network wherein the management function can be extended by installing a plug-in that extends a function of managing a device driver for the device, said application comprising: a menu acquisition unit that acquires menu information, to be displayed on a management screen to enable selection of the management function by a user of the manipulation client upon receiving a drawing request of the management screen from the manipulation client via the network; a drawing unit that generates drawing information of the management screen using the menu information acquired by said menu acquisition unit; and a transmitting unit that transmits the generated drawing information of the management screen to the manipulation client, said plug-in comprising: a menu information generation unit that generates menu information for enabling execution of the management function extended by said plug-in, wherein said menu information generation unit is also configured to acquire information of the device driver managed by said plug-in, and wherein said menu information generation unit of said plug-in generates menu information corresponding to a function for adding the device driver to a client as the management function based on the acquired information of the device driver, when an association between the device and the device driver exists in a database service, wherein said menu acquisition unit of said application acquires the menu information generated by said menu information generation unit of the installed plug-in and said drawing unit generates drawing information using the acquired menu information generated by said menu information generation unit.