Anyone who works day-to-day in the field of desktop computing knows that modern desktop computers come instrumented with a System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) that knows everything about the machine's configuration. A simple software utility need only query the SMBIOS to ascertain all the relevant components and the make, model and manufacturer identifying information. Any half-ways respectable web designer and IT team can put together a simple scanner to be launched from the web page that will immediately report back to the sales site with exact information about the machine and immediately point the visitor to the correct product to purchase, right ? Why go outside when the IT department can whip up a solution in a week that works just as well?

History disproves that assumption. An accurate model recognition capability has eluded even the largest memory manufacturers and retailers, although annual new attempts are a testament to the optimism of the IT culture. Meanwhile work4sure customers are up and running with ComponentMatching within 30 days, seeing revenue gains of at least 35% and enjoying ROI figures that make even hardened CEOs weep, all while taking on no development or support burden within their own organization.

Based on a result set of over a quarter of a million samples, as shown in the following table, less than 75% of machines in the population accurately report model information in their SMBIOS.

In fact, a sizeable percentage of machines in the wild do not even accurately report a manufacturer, let alone a model or an accurate model.

Additionally, a significant percentage cannot even report the manufacturer or name of the motherboard, let alone the specifics of the make and model.

	Blank Entries	Meaningless Entries	Useless Information %
System Manufacturer	32046	“System Manufacturer”:9502 “To be filled by O.E.M.” :711 “To be Filled” :85	16%
System Product Name	40854	“System Name”: 6691 “Product Name”: 3488 “To be filled..”: 1770 “xxxxxxx…”: 719 “000000…”: 464 “Compaq PC”: 9475 “Presario: 1802 “DeskPro”: 1312 “HP Vectra”:1191 etc	24.27%
Baseboard Manufacturer	33399		11.96
Base Product Name	23100		8.28

These figures are actually positively skewed by the presence of one or two manufacturers who consistently and correctly identify their make/model structure in the SMBIOS. When these machines are excluded, the percentage of machines reporting no, useless or non-definitive model information climbs to over 40%.

Those that do report an accurate model, rarely report enough model detail to support a directed buy recommendation. Knowing that the customer machine is a “Compaq Presario” or an “HP Vectra” is not sufficient to pinpoint component compatibility recommendations. Even if sufficient information is acquired from the SMBIOS (which is very rarely the case), this data then has to be compared and matched to the model identifiers used internally in the production and sales system. ComponentMatching virtualizes this process by mapping the model detection against the internal SKU list. This capability is a primary reason why ComponentMatching can be in production and effective in such a short time period.

Browser security is increasing all the time, corporate and individual firewalls are being tightened and the number, variety and versions of browsers are increasing every day. Model recognition is a jungle: Make it easier on yourself and use a guide.