A Shared Commitment to AFP: Perspectives from Consortium Members
The AFP Consortium is built not just on technology, but on the collective expertise of the companies and individuals who design, implement, and rely on AFP every day. Across industries and geographies, members come together to shape the evolution of high-volume, transactional document architectures—balancing innovation with the long-term stability enterprises depend on.
To capture that perspective, we invited Consortium members to share their views on the value of membership, the opportunities and challenges facing AFP, and how they see the technology evolving in the years ahead. Their voices—a mix of practical experience, technical depth, and long-term commitment to the ecosystem—reflect a shared commitment to keeping AFP strong, relevant, and reliable for the long term.
What benefits do you or your company realize as a member of the AFP Consortium?
“Participating directly in the Consortium allows us not only to stay closely aligned with the evolution of the AFP standard, but also to contribute ideas that help shape its future. By deepening our understanding of the standard, we can offer more robust, adaptable, and innovative solutions to our customers.”
“IPDS and AFP technology can feel intimidating at first. The Consortium is a great way to learn, understand the ecosystem, and realize that it’s actually very approachable. Just as importantly, the AFP Consortium is a real community—people openly share their experiences and work together to move the technology forward.”
“As a member of the AFP Consortium, we value direct access to AFP architects and early visibility into emerging AFP architectures, as well as the opportunity to contribute insight and influence where appropriate. That collaboration is especially important as AFP continues to differentiate itself in areas where it excels—particularly in fast, high-volume transactional printing and document generation.”
“We have several AFP products, so it’s important for us to stay current with what’s new in the AFP ecosystem. We really appreciate the Consortium’s website—our lead AFP developer visits it often.”
“From a Customer Communications Management (CCM) provider perspective, especially in regulated industries, print documents still play a critical role—and support for AFP remains important for many customers. Consortium membership signals to customers that we take AFP seriously as a standards-based output format and gives our developers insight and input into the architecture.”
What do you consider the biggest opportunity or challenge for AFP technology?
“AFP is such a well-structured technology. It only makes sense that mainframe customers want to use AFP as the foundation, then use software to transform that data to any printer language.”
“AFP has become not only a print format, but also a widely used format for archiving. That’s likely because it can be self-contained and include metadata for indexing. There may be further opportunities to build on AFP’s role in long-term document archiving, as well.”
“AFP’s biggest opportunities lie in its high compatibility across products, its reliability and reproducibility, and its strong foundation in data security. The fact that documents can be both printed and archived—and that the technology has remained consistent across more than 35 years of product generations—gives AFP a unique and durable position in the industry.”
“AFP/IPDS offers a unique advantage: optimal security and guaranteed integrity—not only for each printed document, but for the entire production workflow. Its flexibility and direct-to-print capabilities improve both efficiency and reliability.”
Has anything surprised you about AFP technology or the Consortium itself since you joined?
“I'm surprised that font and object containers haven't taken off more quickly. They’re so easy to use!”
How do you see AFP evolving in the future?
“Looking ahead, we see a significant opportunity for AFP to more clearly challenge alternative document technologies on usability without compromising performance. Over the next five to ten years, AFP’s evolution should remain anchored in its core strength of speed and reliability for transactional output, while thoughtfully incorporating new requirements such as accessibility and more flexible electronic document capabilities. Continued collaboration within the Consortium will be key to ensuring AFP adapts to these demands while staying true to what makes the technology uniquely valuable.”
“AFP it's still strong and is structured in a way that makes it relatively easy to add new functions, such as new bar code types, new image types, and new options for resources and objects.”
“The AFP Consortium is a great opportunity to meet experts, learn from them, and exchange ideas. I would absolutely encourage companies to join. AFP remains the only technology that truly ensures security and integrity in high-volume printing environments.”
To capture that perspective, we invited Consortium members to share their views on the value of membership, the opportunities and challenges facing AFP, and how they see the technology evolving in the years ahead. Their voices—a mix of practical experience, technical depth, and long-term commitment to the ecosystem—reflect a shared commitment to keeping AFP strong, relevant, and reliable for the long term.
What benefits do you or your company realize as a member of the AFP Consortium?
“Participating directly in the Consortium allows us not only to stay closely aligned with the evolution of the AFP standard, but also to contribute ideas that help shape its future. By deepening our understanding of the standard, we can offer more robust, adaptable, and innovative solutions to our customers.”
“IPDS and AFP technology can feel intimidating at first. The Consortium is a great way to learn, understand the ecosystem, and realize that it’s actually very approachable. Just as importantly, the AFP Consortium is a real community—people openly share their experiences and work together to move the technology forward.”
“As a member of the AFP Consortium, we value direct access to AFP architects and early visibility into emerging AFP architectures, as well as the opportunity to contribute insight and influence where appropriate. That collaboration is especially important as AFP continues to differentiate itself in areas where it excels—particularly in fast, high-volume transactional printing and document generation.”
“We have several AFP products, so it’s important for us to stay current with what’s new in the AFP ecosystem. We really appreciate the Consortium’s website—our lead AFP developer visits it often.”
“From a Customer Communications Management (CCM) provider perspective, especially in regulated industries, print documents still play a critical role—and support for AFP remains important for many customers. Consortium membership signals to customers that we take AFP seriously as a standards-based output format and gives our developers insight and input into the architecture.”
What do you consider the biggest opportunity or challenge for AFP technology?
“AFP is such a well-structured technology. It only makes sense that mainframe customers want to use AFP as the foundation, then use software to transform that data to any printer language.”
“AFP has become not only a print format, but also a widely used format for archiving. That’s likely because it can be self-contained and include metadata for indexing. There may be further opportunities to build on AFP’s role in long-term document archiving, as well.”
“AFP’s biggest opportunities lie in its high compatibility across products, its reliability and reproducibility, and its strong foundation in data security. The fact that documents can be both printed and archived—and that the technology has remained consistent across more than 35 years of product generations—gives AFP a unique and durable position in the industry.”
“AFP/IPDS offers a unique advantage: optimal security and guaranteed integrity—not only for each printed document, but for the entire production workflow. Its flexibility and direct-to-print capabilities improve both efficiency and reliability.”
Has anything surprised you about AFP technology or the Consortium itself since you joined?
“I'm surprised that font and object containers haven't taken off more quickly. They’re so easy to use!”
How do you see AFP evolving in the future?
“Looking ahead, we see a significant opportunity for AFP to more clearly challenge alternative document technologies on usability without compromising performance. Over the next five to ten years, AFP’s evolution should remain anchored in its core strength of speed and reliability for transactional output, while thoughtfully incorporating new requirements such as accessibility and more flexible electronic document capabilities. Continued collaboration within the Consortium will be key to ensuring AFP adapts to these demands while staying true to what makes the technology uniquely valuable.”
“AFP it's still strong and is structured in a way that makes it relatively easy to add new functions, such as new bar code types, new image types, and new options for resources and objects.”
“The AFP Consortium is a great opportunity to meet experts, learn from them, and exchange ideas. I would absolutely encourage companies to join. AFP remains the only technology that truly ensures security and integrity in high-volume printing environments.”
