Insyde Technology: News: Press Releases: SystemSoft ACPI Technology Adopted by More than 10 PC Vendors

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Oct. 7, 1997 - Affirming its technology leadership in Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), SystemSoft® Corp. (NASDAQ: SYSF) announced this week at the OnNow/ACPI Workshop that more than 10 PC vendors have licensed the company's ACPI firmware (ACPI ROM). Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) ranging from Clevo, Kapok and MiTAC have turned to SystemSoft's advanced ACPI solution to reduce product time-to-market for ACPI compliance.

SystemSoft's ACPI ROM is a BIOS-independent, small memory footprint solution. In addition to providing OEMs immediate ACPI 1.0 compliance, its BIOS-independence allows it to be easily and quickly layered on top of third-party or in-house developed BIOS. Other ACPI solutions require BIOS upgrades, which can increase product development time, add costs, and sacrifice time-to-market requirements.

Additionally, SystemSoft's ACPI ROM, through its modularity and compression techniques, requires significantly less ROM space than other ACPI BIOS solutions. Competing solutions often necessitate PC vendors to upgrade flash parts with increased capacity, adding cost to the system.

"OEMs require ACPI solutions that can be quickly and easily integrated into product designs," said Stephen J. Gentile, vice president of marketing for SystemSoft's Platform Products Group. "SystemSoft's ACPI products are designed to work with any BIOS, an important consideration for desktop and mobile OEMs. Our ACPI solutions allow SystemSoft customers to provide improved system power management and plug and play without sacrificing product release dates."

"MiTAC evaluated several ACPI solutions and SystemSoft's was the best at simplifying the ACPI development process," said Yuh-Chen Tsai, project manager of MiTAC's Portable Products Unit. "Most importantly, SystemSoft's ACPI ROM was easily layered into our existing BIOS. This saved months in additional development time and engineering resources."

"SystemSoft was the first system-level software vendor with a proven, tested ACPI firmware solution," said Ivan Chung, director of product marketing at Clevo. "This expertise has taken the complexity out of designing ACPI-compliant systems."

"Their ability to integrate ACPI support into our BIOS without changing the ROM memory footprint was a key reason for selecting SystemSoft's ACPI technology," said Parkson Kuo, assistant president at Kapok. "SystemSoft's ACPI ROM's small footprint eliminated that concern and the subsequent costs that would have added to our PCs."

The ACPI specification, developed by Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., allows the PC operating system to monitor and control system configuration and power management. ACPI is a requirement for Microsoft's PC97 and 98 designs, and a key element of Microsoft's OnNow and Simply Interactive PC (SIPC) Initiatives. SystemSoft is working with all leading chipset and peripheral manufacturers to develop, test and ensure ACPI compliance in hardware and system firmware. In addition, SystemSoft has worked closely with Microsoft and Intel on the development and testing of the SystemSoft ACPI products.

SystemSoft has provided early and complete support for the ACPI specification. The company now offers a comprehensive product family that helps OEMs to quickly and easily design ACPI-compliant systems. In addition to ACPI ROM, SystemSoft also offers ACPIBuilder(a powerful development tool that simplifies ACPI coding (see today's related announcement). ACPIBuilder is an easy-to-use tool that simplifies development of ACPI Source Language (ASL Code), helping PC vendors reduce the time and cost associated with bringing ACPI-compliant PCs to market. Features include: drag and drop project creation, hierarchical system representation, automatic ACPI Machine Language (AML) generation and project organization.

SystemSoft is the pioneer in system-level software, connectivity, and problem-resolution technologies. SystemSoft's software products now include Universal Serial Bus firmware and software, SystemWizard™ call-avoidance software, CardWizard™ PC Card software, Plug-and-Play software, ACPI firmware ROM and development tools, power-management software, and BIOS. SystemSoft licenses its products primarily to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), including manufacturers of PCs, and independent software and hardware vendors. Its customers include Acer, Apple Computer, AST Computer, Compaq, Dell Computer Corp., Digital Equipment Corporation, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, NEC, and Toshiba. Based in Natick, Mass., SystemSoft employs more than 250 at its headquarters and in offices in Boulder, Colo.; Santa Clara, Calif.; Oxnard, Calif.; Yokohama, Japan; and Taipei, Taiwan.