

The article is bad at explaining this, but the origin of the term is software that you would buy, you would then be presented with a EULA (after opening the shrink wrap on the box), then you would be unable to return it because it was opened.
It originated in the 80s before digital goods were really a thing.
The term to look for is out of band management. Typically this will provide serial/console access to a device, and can often perform actions like power cycling. A lot of server hardware has this built in (eg idrac for Dell, IPMI generically). Some users will have a separate oobm network for remotely accessing/managing everything else.