Microsoft Taking Over the BIOS

dtjohnson writes "According to this story, Microsoft has entered into an agreement with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies to integrate the BIOS with Windows. This has the potential to turn PCs into Windows-only machines and also could result in widespread incorporation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology into new PCs. It looks like Microsoft is beginning to flex their marketplace monopoly muscles again, after taking a couple of years off."

Comments

Re:Whew!

[ozric99]

Should help Mac sales somewhat! :)

Yeah, because Mac hardware is well known for being able to run countless operating systems.. no wait ;)

Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS

[MrLint]

Looks like phoenix wants to take a dirt nap. Let see what will happen here. The bios will be used to lock out other OSes (see xbox) and that will stifle competition. So will it be lawsuit or death by market forces?

BIOS viruses and whatnot...

[Licensed2Hack]

Great, now PC BIOSes will be wide open to virus infection. Think the virus outbreak this past summer was bad? Just wait until there are thousands of zombie machines with a hosed BIOS spewing Swen emails.

Antivirus software will have to be in the BIOS also.

Re:Is this bad?

[tshak]

x86 is based on standards. Even Apple's hardware is based on standards (PCI, USB, Firewire, PowerPC, etc.). However, Apple has Apple certified hardware in which is closed to third party vendors. MS should be allowed to have MS certified hardware, and at least they are using third party vendors for it. It's been obvious that the Apple architecture is superior and their closed hardware design is a huge reason. You can't stop MS from doing it, and you can't stop Linux vendors from doing the same. This is not anti-competitive unless MS purposely strong-arms OEM's into selling Windows-only BIOS's. Microsoft's monopoly should never prevent them from making a better product. Remember that antitrust is not about hurting Microsoft, it's about what's best for the consumer. If PC's can become more like Apple's on a hardware standpoint, then that's a good thing. Nothing has stopped a Linux vendor from doing this 10 year ago.