Yes, the standard firmware interface. Those working on the Itanium platform (Intel and presumably HP) wanted to have a boot solution that didn't have the techni

Yes, the standard firmware interface. Those working on the Itanium platform (Intel and presumably HP) wanted to have a boot solution that didn't have the technical shortcomings of existing BIOS designs. That drove an initiative to create a formal spec and an implementation. I believe Itanium was the first platform with EFI, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.