Patent ID: 7317549

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for communicating with a plurality of content-providing apparatuses that provide content printing information required to perform a printing operation based on content data, the information processing apparatus comprising: a communication protocol storage unit adapted to link the plurality of content-providing apparatuses and the corresponding types of communication protocols, respectively, and to store information for the plurality of content-providing apparatuses; a communication protocol determining unit adapted to determine, when a print order is received from a user terminal, a type of communication protocol that is used to communicate with one of the plurality of the content-providing apparatuses, which provides the content ordered to be printed, based on the information stored in the communication protocol storage unit; an acquisition unit adapted to acquire the content printing information from the content-providing apparatus using the type of communication protocol determined by the communication protocol determining unit; and a generating unit adapted to generate screen data representing a screen for setting printing conditions of the content data, based on the content printing information acquired by the acquisition unit.