Patent ID: 8296830

Claim:
A management apparatus capable of communicating with a plurality of external devices comprising: a storage unit configured to store management information including authentication information for authenticating a user of the external device; a first transmission unit configured to transmit an authentication result of the user in the external device and user information necessary for authenticating the user in the external device among the management information, to the external device by referring to the management information stored in the storage unit in response to a request from the external device; a selection unit configured to, when a content of the management information is changed, select at least one of the plurality of external devices to be a transmission destination of the changed management information based on the changed content of the management information; and a second transmission unit configured to transmit the changed management information to the external device selected by the selection unit wherein the management information further includes user location information which is location information associated with each of a plurality of users, and external device location information indicating an installation location of each of the plurality of external devices, and the selection unit selects at least one of the plurality of external devices whose external device location information matches with the user location information in the changed management information.