Patent ID: 7600050

Claim:
An information processing apparatus communicable with a plurality of peripheral devices and a terminal, comprising: a saving unit which receives information about each peripheral device of the plurality of peripheral devices from each peripheral device of the plurality of peripheral devices and saves the information; a deciding unit which decides a sharing rate indicating use frequency of each of the plurality of peripheral devices based on at least one of (1) a number of terminals which have accessed the peripheral device, (2) a number of messages that each of the plurality of peripheral devices has received and (3) an amount of data that each of the plurality of peripheral devices has received; a reception unit which receives, from the terminal, a request message to request the information about the peripheral device, which is held by said saving unit; and a response unit which transmits, to the terminal, information about the peripheral device selected in accordance with the sharing rate of each of the plurality of peripheral devices decided by said deciding unit when said reception unit receives the request message, wherein the selected peripheral device is displayed in order in accordance with the sharing rate in the terminal.