AMI

In 1985, Subramonian Shankar and Pat Sarma founded American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), a company that would become a foundational player in the personal computer industry. They started by designing and manufacturing high-end motherboards, securing PC's Limited, the precursor to Dell, as their first customer. This initial focus was on hardware, providing the essential backbone for the burgeoning PC market. As the hardware manufacturing landscape began to shift towards Taiwan-based companies, AMI adeptly pivoted its strategy. The company leveraged its deep expertise and began focusing on BIOS firmware, software that is crucial for booting up a computer. This move proved to be a masterstroke. They released their first BIOS for motherboards in 1986, followed by versions for servers, storage controllers, and remote management cards in the subsequent years. A significant event in the company's journey was the sale of its RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) division to LSI Logic in 2001. This transaction allowed AMI to sharpen its focus on its core firmware and OEM business. Today, AMI is a private company and a global leader in UEFI firmware, the successor to the traditional BIOS, as well as remote management and security solutions, continuing to power a vast number of the world's computers from its headquarters in Georgia.