Dell takes a stake

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 7, 2003

Dell has made an equity investment in OSA Technologies, the only independent software vendor dedicated exclusively to Intelligent Platform Management Interface software and firmware.

Dell has made an equity investment in OSA Technologies, the only independent software vendor dedicated exclusively to Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) software and firmware.

Earlier this year, OSA completed its Series B funding totalling more than $9 million.

OSA allows systems vendors to provide customers with "last mile manageability" capabilities based on IPMI.

"Last mile manageability" is described as remote management, monitoring, diagnostics and recovery at every phase of a system's lifecycle: preboot, OS-present and OS-unresponsive.

Dell's investment in OSA underscores how the IPMI standard can fulfil the needs of server administrators across platforms - increasing overall server reliability and reducing the total cost of ownership for IT departments.

"Dell's investment in OSA and IPMI technology is further proof of the momentum behind IPMI", said Mark Lee, CEO and President of OSA.

"OSA, together with Dell as an IPMI promoter and investor, is helping to drive the standardisation of IPMI in servers, blades, telecom, networking, and storage industries, reducing TCO for IT and data centres".

"This investment in OSA is part of Dell's strategy to drive management standards, such as IPMI, that help provide simplicity and improved cost of ownership for enterprise server products", said Russell Holt, Vice President of Enterprise Engineering in Dell's Product Group.

"OSA's focus on standards-based embedded management solutions complements Dell's OpenManage suite of products by providing IT users with pre-integrated system management features based on IPMI".

OSA's IPMI firmware and software solutions, available worldwide, are designed to be easily integrated into system vendors' products.

In addition to supporting IPMI mandatory and optional features, products can also be tailored to meet individual customer needs for differentiation.

OSA provides IPMI products for the entire ecosystem of vendors - from IPMI software, drivers and utilities for OEMs and other ISVs, to firmware for component and silicon designers.