Stay Safe To The CoreStay Safe To The Core

Phoenix Technologies Ltd. last week introduced its Core Managed Environment, a set of development tools, application programming interfaces, and BIOS technologies that let companies keep critical apps in a secure area, independent of the main operating system.

The implications are far-reaching. Manufacturers can use these development aids to install operating systems, security applications, and Web browsers in tamper-resistant areas of their PCs and servers. In the event the operating system fails to load properly, the PC or server can communicate with a Web site and automatically download applications needed to fix the problem.

"IT managers are concerned about attacks on the operating-system level," says Edward Hoo, a Phoenix Technologies VP. "We want BIOS to become the core system software."

While most people think of BIOS as just ASCII text that stops working once it loads the operating system, Phoenix wants companies to use this protected area as a way to make devices more secure and reliable, says Roger Kay, IDC's director of client computing. Phoenix's development tools are an incremental, but important, develop-ment in BIOS technology, Kay says. "Someday, we might be able to use these tools to create something like LoJack for notebooks," he says, referring to the network police use to track stolen cars. Offered by LoJack Corp., the radio-frequency-based system relies on a main sensor hidden somewhere in a car.

Phoenix says its Core Managed Environment is one way IBM's resellers build IBM Rapid Restore PC into its PCs. Rapid Restore PC technology, developed by Xpoint Technologies for IBM, lets users create a backup image of data, apps, and the operating system and store it in a protected part of the hard drive.

Phoenix has more than two decades of experience working at the hard-drive level. About 1.2 billion PCs, servers, and other devices use its BIOS technologies to manage systems from the time the power is switched on until BIOS hands over control of the hardware to the operating system. In those few seconds, BIOS communicates with system hardware, checks to ensure that the proper drivers are installed, checks the accuracy of the system's date and time, and loads the operating system.