Following the adoption of its PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) based technology by Novell, PreWorX estimates that up to 30 million people could be using this technology on a daily basis over the next 5 years.
"Major vendors have realised how important this technology is to PC support and management, with several vendors now endorsing our product," says Rhys Taylor, marketing director of PreWorX.
Novell is the first large vendor to license the technology from Pretoria-based PreWorX to bring additional business value to Novell`s ZENworks for Desktops management solution. The technology will be sold to customers worldwide as an add-on product to the next version of Novell`s ZENworks for Desktops.
The PreWorX technology adds extended functionality to the PXE specification, Taylor adds, which does not come standard with PCs today. The ability to provide extended services like eSupport, web content, or low-level PC management across virtually any topology from corporate networks to end user cable connections reduces total cost of ownership (TCO), user downtime and the human support element, by providing advanced preboot and post boot support capabilities, designed to extend management reach when servicing and supporting remote PCs.
The technology allows PCs to participate under a management system, or participate within a connected environment even if the local drive or operating system is corrupted or damaged.
"These extended functionalities could comprise a virtual toolbox, enabling support personnel to view, test, re-commission, diagnose, configure and install or repair data on remote systems without an OS. Novell has recognised the importance of our advanced preboot technology for its millions of users, and so will others."
Taylor says anyone who has purchased new workstations in the past 18 months will most likely have purchased PXE-ready workstations. PXE is an industry-standard protocol initiated by Intel that allows a workstation to boot up and execute a program from the network before the workstation operating system starts.
"However, even though Intel brought the PXE technology to market several years ago no company, until now, has provided enhancements to preboot technology," maintains Taylor. "Technicians are still visiting corporate sites to repair PCs whose operating systems have crashed or won`t boot."
Taylor further points out that industry leaders worked together to develop standards like the Wired for Management (WfM) specification, which incorporates PXE, our technology builds upon these initiatives driven by Intel and subscribed to by most major PC vendors and motherboard manufacturers. The technology uses the PXE specification within the WfM initiative to load the technology onto a remote PC.
"Any workstation that claims to be PC99 compliant has to support PXE and WfM," says Taylor. "All PreWorX needs to manage a PC in the pre-boot state is a physical connection to a network or telephone line and the PreWorX management software. If a legacy PC is not compliant with the industry standards PreWorX is in a position to provide enabling PXE technologies that will bring it up to the required level of manageability, an achievement unequalled in the industry at this point.
Taylor says PreWorX believes the additional benefits of preboot functionality within desktop management solutions will take PC management far into the future. "The ability to provide management services to a PC at any point from `bare metal` to `fully functional` is an extremely powerful tool that will eventually alter the way we traditionally manage and support PCs around the world.
"Technicians will no longer need to visit machines to deliver services or build the desktop operating system, vastly simplifying the management of Net resources and reducing the cost of a customer`s rollout of Windows 2000 or other desktop operating systems for instance. Remote administration locations anywhere can make use of LANs, WANs and even the Internet to log-on and have full, secure access to every part of a PC," Taylor says.
In conclusion he says the `human factor` is rapidly becoming too costly for day-to-day support needs. PreWorX is thus focusing on reducing the impact of outsourcing expenditure by developing technologies and closing partnerships with technology companies that share the same vision.
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