Patent ID: 8769161

Claim:
A device management apparatus connected to a plurality of devices via a network, the device management apparatus comprising: a collecting unit configured to receive usage data indicating a status of use of each of the devices from each of the devices and store the received usage data in a storage device; and a common data acquiring unit configured to obtain common data that is common to the devices from the usage data of each of the devices stored in the storage device, wherein the common data acquiring unit obtains the common data from the usage data of each of the devices based on second data concerning a use environment of a device used by a user, the device management apparatus further comprising an input unit configured to receive input of the second data from a user, wherein: the common data acquiring unit obtains the common data from the usage data of each of the devices based on the input second data, the second data contains information on a conference, the devices include a plurality of network devices used via a network, the collecting unit receives, from each of the network devices, conference history information that indicates a history of conferences performed by using each of the network devices and that contains an operating time of the conference and number of participants in the conference, and stores the conference history information of each of the network devices in the storage device, the input unit receives, as the second data, number of sheets per document, and the common data acquiring unit obtains the common data from the usage data of each of the network devices based on the input second data and based on the operating time and the number of participants contained in the conference history information.