1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooperative system, an information processing apparatus, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally known are technologies for enabling a plurality of image forming apparatuses to operate cooperatively to achieve functions that cannot be achieved merely with one image forming apparatus.
Among such technologies, for example, Japanese Patent No. 5241345 discloses a technology for managing jobs corresponding to a cooperative operation. According to this disclosure, the logs of jobs executed by the image forming apparatuses are gathered and associated with each other so as to manage jobs for a cooperative operation. With the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 5241345, because one of the image forming apparatuses controls the cooperative operation, the image forming apparatus serving as the controller of the cooperative operation can gather the jobs executed by the image forming apparatuses.
Also having been developed recently are devices having an independent operation unit and an independent main unit, but the main unit in such a device does not control the flow of a job.
Therefore, when such a device is caused to perform a cooperative operation, the main unit of the device has been only capable of managing the log of the jobs executed by the device, and been incapable of gathering and managing the logs of jobs executed by another device, in the manner disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 5241345. Therefore, the jobs of a cooperative operation have not been quite manageable.
Therefore, there is a need for a cooperative system, an information processing apparatus, and a computer program product that enable the management of jobs for a cooperative operation even when an apparatus having an independent operation unit and an independent main unit performs the cooperative operation.