Leading Computer Companies Join Together to Support Industry Standard for Consistent Desktop Management BIOS; New BIOS specification provides PC system administrators increased security, functionality and reduced support costs with improved BIOS standard for reporting system resources.IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 1995--Computer Industry leaders including Intel Corp., Dell Computer, Phoenix Technologies, American Megatrends American Megatrends Incorporated (AMI) is a Georgia, USA based hardware company that creates PC hardware and firmware. It was founded in 1985 by the current chairman and president, S. Shankar. Inc., Award Software and SystemSoft today released the Desktop Management Interface (DMI (Desktop Management Interface) The first desktop management standard from the DMTF. Enabling PCs to be monitored from a central console, it was superseded by the DMTF's Common Information Model (see CIM). ) BIOS specification. The DMI BIOS specification is the first established, common standard to make key information about a computer system's main-board available to DMI compatible management application software programs and system management applications. System administrators will now have accurate, up-to-the-minute access to critical data such as CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. types, memory capabilities, operational status, low level statistics on a system's behavior and other information about the system's components. In the past, this information was not available in a standard BIOS format and needed to be retrieved in some implementation specific manner such as launching a software program that would recheck the capabilities of each computer on the network. The DMI BIOS extends the functionality of the PnP BIOS Specification (adopted last year) by adding a method whereby system motherboard information may be retrieved directly through the industry standard PnP interface. Two types of system board information is provided through the DMI BIOS, static and dynamic information. Static Information includes, ports, connectors, card slots A socket for inserting a printed circuit board or a PC Card (CardBus card). See PC Card. , vendor identification, system model name, version, release date, etc. Dynamic Information incorporates processor information, system memory and cache that may change from time to time. For instance, if additional memory is installed or removed from a particular computer, the DMI data structures are automatically updated and will show the current configuration immediately. "The DMI BIOS specification maps perfectly into Dell's strategy of driving standards-based technology into Optiplex computers to manage corporate desktop and lower life cycle costs," said Ron Olfers, director of marketing at Dell Computer Corp. "Our customers demanded DMI BIOS a year ago and we delivered it. We are happy to see that the entire industry recognized the need for this technology and has adopted this specification," said Dr. Gayn Winters, chief technology officer at Phoenix Technologies Ltd. "We have also developed a Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 DMI BIOS Component Interface (CI) that supports the new DMI BIOS specification." "American Megatrends is very pleased to be part of the DMI BIOS working group. This is the type of cooperation that is necessary to continue the growth of the PC industry," said David Maddox, director of sales at American Megatrends. "We feel that DMI is one of the most important technologies to LAN administrators See network administrator. (job) LAN administrator - A person who installs and maintains LAN hardware and software. A LAN administrator troubleshoots network usage and computer peripherals. and remote users for such things as asset management and overall system control." "The real contribution of the DMI BIOS from a system management point of view is its ability to provide a gateway to vital system data," said Dr. Ann Shen Shen, in the Bible, place, perhaps close to Bethel, near which Samuel set up the stone Ebenezer. , vice president of marketing and sales at Award Software. "We are providing basic BIOS level support and have developed a Windows 95-based browser that allows user access to system management information." "SystemSoft is strongly endorsing the new DMI BIOS specification, and views it as the next step in making PCs easier to use, maintain and service. We are committed to developing a range of new products and feature enhancements to our existing BIOS and system firmware A category of memory chips that hold their content without electrical power. Firmware includes flash, ROM, PROM, EPROM and EEPROM technologies. When holding program instructions, firmware can be thought of as "hard software." See flash memory, ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM and FOTA. products in 1996 to support this emerging standard," said Jonathan Joseph, senior vice president, PC Software Division, SystemSoft Corp. Over the past few years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force, Inc., Portland, OR, www.dmtf.org) An industry consortium founded in 1992 that is involved with the development, support and maintenance of management standards for PCs. Its goal is to reduce the cost and complexity of PC management. has gained significant momentum in bringing manageability to the desktop systems, components, operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. and software applications. "We are very pleased that these companies have worked together to develop a standard interface which provides consistent and intelligent BIOS information to software and system management applications. This effort supports the DMTF's overall goal of enabling cross-platform, intelligent management for end-users," said Ed Arrington, DMTF chairman. Copies of the BIOS Boot Specification are available on the Worldwide Web at: http://www.ptltd.com. -0- Note to Editors: Intel, Dell, Phoenix, Award, AMI and SystemSoft are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of their respective companies (Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office). All other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. CONTACT: Phoenix Technologies Ltd. Albert Saraie, 714/440-8335 albert_saraie@PTLTD.com or Intel Corporation (company) Intel Corporation - A US microelectronics manufacturer. They produced the Intel 4004, Intel 8080, Intel 8086, Intel 80186, Intel 80286, Intel 80386, Intel 486 and Pentium microprocessor families as well as many other integrated circuits and personal computer networking Mark Shipman Mark Shipman (born 3 January 1973, Sheffield, England) is a British diver. He has competed at European, Commonwealth, World and Olympic levels on the 3 metre springboard. With Tony Ally he came 7th in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. His club is City of Sheffield. , 503/696-2318 mark_shipman ship·man n. 1. A sailor. 2. A shipmaster. @ccm2.hf.intel.com or Dell Corporation Christopher Zagorski, 512/728-7814 christopher_zagorski@ccmail.us.dell.com or Award Software Jeffrey Flink, 415/968-4433 j_flink@award.com or American Megatrends Inc. David Maddox, 404/246-8612 Davidm@american.megatrends.com or SystemSoft Corp. Stephen Gentile, 508/651-0088 sgentile@systemsoft.com |
|
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion