Patent ID: 7589857

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an information storage unit configured to store an address book of at least one user; a request receipt unit configured to receive a process request for the address book and user identification information from the at least one user; a request processing unit configured to authenticate the at least one user based on the received user identification information and perform an operation corresponding to the process request on the address book in accordance with access authority granted to the at least one user, when the request receipt unit receives the process request and the user identification information from the at least one user; and a request control unit configured to queue the received process request, when the received process request corresponds to an edit operation on the address book and is received during execution of an operation corresponding to another process request on the address book, and to merge a plurality of process requests for multiple users when the plurality of process requests are related to the edit operation on a same address information and are queued, wherein the address book has both address information for transmitting data to the at least one user via a network and management information having user identification information of the at least one user, and the another process request corresponds to at least one of a view operation, a reference operation, an edit operation, and a delete operation on information stored in the address book.