UEFI Forum Sees Industry Adoption of Extensible Firmware with UEFI Testing at the Windows Server 'Longhorn' Plugfest

 
UEFI Systems Tested at Windows Server "Longhorn" Plugfest on April 2-5, 2007 at Microsoft in Redmond Indicate the Industry is Quickly Adopting UEFI Technology
 
BEAVERTON, Ore. - The Unified EFI Forum, a non-profit collaborative specification organization formed to define, promote and manage the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) standard announces progress on adoption of interface standards as demonstrated by UEFI compatibility testing conducted at the Windows Server "Longhorn" Plugfest Event. As an evolving standard, the UEFI specification is driven by contributions and support from member companies of the UEFI Forum.
 
On April 2-5 2007, twenty industry leading companies met in Redmond, Washington for the Microsoft hosted Plugfest. Although many key technologies were stressed during the event, UEFI compatibility testing was at the forefront.
 
Microsoft intends to provide feature parity for legacy BIOS and UEFI systems in the Windows Server Longhorn release. Future Windows development will be prioritized for UEFI-enabled platforms. New and more complex system architectures demand firmware capabilities that test the limits of legacy BIOS. Highly specialized development environments and lack of a standard specification further limit the potential for legacy BIOS moving forward.
 
An industry-wide effort to develop a standards-based extensible firmware solution has been gaining momentum in the industry. Microsoft has taken an active role in the development of the new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) system firmware specification and support for it in Windows.
 
“Microsoft has taken an active role in the development of the UEFI system firmware specification and support for it in Windows Server,” said Bill Laing, general manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corporation. “UEFI provides a more capable platform for system enhancements on future operating systems, and we encourage platform developers to develop and deliver UEFI capable systems.”
 
About UEFI
 
The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification defines a new model for the interface between operating systems and platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, plus boot and runtime service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. Together, these provide a modern, well defined environment for booting an operating system and running pre-boot applications. The Unified EFI Forum is the group responsible for developing, managing and promoting the UEFI specification. Further information about the UEFI specification and membership opportunities can be found at http://www.uefi.org
 
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