Patent ID: 7383448

Claim:
A power management apparatus for managing power supply to a plurality of printers connected to a plurality of hosts over a network, said power management apparatus comprising: a host-operation-state monitoring module for monitoring whether or not said hosts are powered on; a host-specific-priority-setting module for setting priority of each of said printers for each of said hosts; a printer information calculation module for aggregating the set host-specific priorities to calculate priority of each of said printers based at least in part on whether the host-operation-state monitoring module monitors that one or more of said hosts is powered on; a printer power supply determination module for determining whether or not each printer should be powered on based at least in part on the calculated priority of each of said printers; and a printer power supply control module for remotely controlling power supply to each printer on the basis of determination of whether or not the printer should be powered on.