Patent ID: 7173721

Claim:
A multifunction machine/server system comprising: a server connected to a network and comprising a parent operation management unit and child processing units; and a plurality of multifunction machines connected to the network, each of said plurality of multifunction machines, comprising: a first-kind-of-process unit for transferring, when requested for a first kind of process, an electronic document needed for executing the first kind of process to said server via the network, and requesting said server to execute the first kind of process with respect to the electronic document; and a second-kind-of-process unit for solely executing, when requested for a second kind of process, the second kind of process without linkage with said server, wherein said server executes the first kind of processes that said plurality of multifunction machines request said server to execute by judging by the parent operation management unit of the server whether a connection request from the multifunction machine is acceptable and allocating one of the server child processing units to the multifunction machine, if judged the connection request is acceptable, and wherein the server child processing unit starts a server first kind of process requested by the multifunction machine.