My wife and I were fighting like hammer and tongs. She won, she had the hammer - Tommy Cooper
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MSI trials EFI BIOS replacement
MSI HAS ANNOUNCED plans to trial the supposed future BIOS replacement, EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface).
The EFI specification was primarily intended to support Intel's past and future architectures under one umbrella, but has taken sometime to come be adopted by manufacturers.
Intel's biggest EFI win was Apple, which has implemented EFI throughout the Intel Mac range.
EFI is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. EFI is intended as a significantly improved replacement of the old legacy BIOS firmware interface used by modern PCs.
The EFI specification was originally developed by Intel, and is now managed by the Unified EFI Forum and is officially known as Unified EFI (UEFI).
While this is all sounds nicely formalised and specified, you might be asking how this effects you, the end user.
The specification allows for a considerable change in what can be implemented at this very low level.
Graphical menus, standard mouse point-and-click operations, pre-operating-system application support such as web browsers, mail applications and media players, will all feature heavily within EFI.
MSI's implementation currently lacks much of anything other than what you'd find in a standard BIOS, as the screenshots below show, however it's a firm start and we can start to expect further features and application support appearing as development progresses and EFI demand accelerates.
The EFI menu.
Standard MSI overclocking controls.
"MSI will start to phase EFI into its next generation motherboard platform, and will allow much easier accessibility of motherboard BIOS systems. The ability to use a GUI and mouse can only encourage users to attempt to unlock the full potential of today's modern motherboards. Even at this early beta stage we have seen excellent OC potential using current generation of MSI motherboards." said Richard Stewart, UK Marketing Manager of MSI.
While it's doubtful EFI makes any difference to the overclocking potential of a motherboard, the simplicity in which the overclocking controls can be used, should aid novice and expert users alike.
It should be noted that while the 64-bit version of Vista supports EFI in SP1, the 32-bit versions will not, Microsoft states:
"Given the advent of mainstream 64-bit computing and the platform costs previously discussed, Microsoft determined that vendors would not have any interest in producing native UEFI 32-bit firmware. Microsoft has therefore chosen to not ship support for 32-bit UEFI implementations."
So, though promising, MSI's EFI motherboards will probably be of limited desire for sometime, but we're just happy progress is finally being made to replace the antiquated PC BIOS. ยต
L'Inqs
Intel's
EFI site
Wikipedia
EFI
UEFI home
Microsoft
Vista EFI brief
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If it can do media players and render web pages, why can't you throw in a few Office apps too :)
If you can do many web-based things without booting an OS, many people won't.
Welcome to the future of Bios-equivlent bloatware. Multiple hardware-level screen-savers, hardware-level start-up music, menu animation, etc etc.
I like the sound of this, a platform which taken far enough would allow a genuine OS to be written as easily as an internet browser. (Because if drivers can be handled by UEFI then OS dont need any.)

I fully expect the MS will attempt to monopilise it and then make it difficult for new OS to start up. But MacOS seems preadapted to make use of it quicker. 

Will Jobs finally quit the day job and fulfill his destiny as nemesis of Microshaft? Tune in next week...
All this is basically fluff to sell more motherboards imho. If it can help setup new systems removing the hardware conflicts that I see now on systems that use a lot of hardware esp between hard drives and DVD Burners.
Okay so I can see the Idea of web browser support (html layout) and media player (info videos - although... whats wrong with info text? Isn't that good enough?).

But I'm waiting for the day when my EFI motherboard will tell me that I need to download the newest, 142 mB large "Bios Update" because they forgot to put in a video. Please, don't let it get to that point.
I think for EFI to work completely, each hardware have to have their own "driver" stored in their EPROM or something. Then each time the EFI started up, it just fetch the "driver" for that hardware from the hardware itself, plug-n-play... easy!

Load-in the virtualization, then you can have virtualization in a more hardware level...

Ho! Ho! Ho!
It should be noted that EFI is widely criticized. There's a lot of talk about EFI being DRM garbage, which I think is mostly bunk, but two years ago Linus asked why EFI instead of BIOS and I still haven't seen a compelling reason.
The PC BIOS was originally an anti-cloning measure by IBM for the original PC which should have been mostly dispensed with years ago. The BIOS may be the last significant legacy domino and general adoption of UEFI a sign that the PC has fully evolved into a mature general purpose computing platform. Microsoft could demonstrate some enlightened self-interest if they would include support for UEFI in Windows XP SP3 as well.