The NGP will cease operation and all its work will be taken up by CIP4 in the transitional period leading up to Drupa at the end of May.

CIP4 chief executive Margaret Motamed of EFI said: "During the transition, all CIP4 members will have the opportunity to get involved in BNG activities. For instance, we will be working on a major update to the Integration Matrix and development of new programs that will all be revealed at Drupa."

The BNG will focus on market communications and business development to help draw more companies in to the CIP4 fold.

The first "summit meeting" of the BNG will be held in Spa, Belgium, in early March alongside the CIP4 Interoperability Forum and working group meetings.

NGP was launched by Creo in the run up to Ipex 2002 as a tool for marketing the integration of its workflow products with MIS. Over time it became a forum of vendors working to integrate their products using JDF. Since Drupa 2004, NGP has been a member of CIP4 and has been working on implementing integrations based on JDF.