Patent ID: 8665474

Claim:
An image forming apparatus capable of communicating with a plurality of host computers, comprising: a registration unit that, when receiving a print request from any one of the plurality of host computers, registers host information indicative of the host computer as a source of the request so that an order of print requests can be identified; a control unit that carries out connection and disconnection to and from each of the host computers as sources of print requests according to the host information registered in said registration unit; a printing unit that receives print data from the host computers connected by said control unit, and carries out printing processing based on the received print data, wherein when it is determined based on the host information registered in said registration unit that a host computer as a source of a print request received next after a print request from a currently-connected host computer is the same as the currently-connected host computer, said control unit provides control to receive print data from the currently-connected host computer, and then receive print data corresponding to the next print request from the currently-connected host computer without terminating the connection with the currently-connected host computer.