Intel to buy Wind River for $884 million

Chip giant Intel is set to acquire Wind River Systems, a maker of software for embedded devices.

Intel has entered a definitive agreement to buy Wind River for $11.50 per share in cash, which works out to a total value of approximately $884 million, Wind River said Thursday. Wind River would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting to the chipmaker's Software and Services Group, headed by Renee James.

The pending acquisition, Wind River said, would fit into "Intel's strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments, into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices."

Embedded systems can include consumer electronics devices, car dashboard gear, and networking equipment.

During its fiscal year that ended in January, Wind River had revenue of $359.7 million. The Alameda, Calif.-based company has more than 1,600 employees.

The acquisition is expected to close this summer, pending regulatory approvals and other conditions.

For a more in-depth look at the acquisition, see "Wind River buy makes Intel a software company."

[wdmiller]

Jon - What doe Wind River Systems do? - Bill

[viss9434]

They make an OS called VxWorks. It is a Real Time OS, primarily for use in embedded devices where pseudo real time responsiveness is required.

They do other stuff too...

[Philips]

... as well as lots of Linux stuff. They are one of the leading embedded Linux vendors.

[Jon Skillings]

@viss9434 and @Philips - Thanks for answering that question; I was just trying to get down the basics of the proposed transaction. We'll have a more in-depth story shortly digging into the details of what Wind River does and why Intel would want to own it.

[danielwsmithee]

This is an interesting acquisition for the industry I work in Aerospace/Defense. VxWorks is used a lot but almost never on intel hardware.

[Heinz_W]

" I work in Aerospace/Defense. VxWorks is used a lot but almost never on intel hardware. "

I guess the preferred platform for that industry is still PowerPC and Intel does not really seem to be robust and reliable enough AFAIK. Same applies for Linux. Isn't really hackerproof(understatement ;-)
Also I am not sure if VxWorks on Intel is something Intel would like to focus on. The military market is really small compared to all those consumer articles.

[jbuberel]

...but in recent years, Wind River has shifted its focus to Linux very heavily. They are also working on Android/Linux related projects too. That - my guess - is why Intel acquired them.

[JoeF2]

Yup. With Intel going into the mobile and embedded space, where Wind River is pretty big, this makes sense.
VxWorks is indeed rather old and was losing market share, that's why Wind River bought BSDi some time ago, and later went into the Linux market.

[Heinz_W]

Wind River itself also acquired some other companies and a while ago thus owned a well known OS called Psos. They got rid of that rather fast then leaving a lot of customers alone. This was not good for their reputation.

VxWorks is already quite old and that is probably why Wind River went in the Linux business. They also take the not much liked model of royalties for their products and because less consumer products are sold it most likely is good for the WRS people to be taken over.

Why it is good for Intel I don't know. The atom is not really good for products which require a low power consumption as there are better alternatives like the ARM core but for handheld devices it may probably fit with enough battery power. So.. keywords are maybe .... hand-held, atom, Linux, Royalties,

[JoeF2]

"This was not good for their reputation."
During the time the bought BSDi, they also bad-mouthed the GPL. But apparently they later learned, and are now a big player in the realtime and embedded Linux space.

And as far as low-power CPUs are concerned, Intel actually has an ARM license, through an earlier acquisition.

[Heinz_W]

" And as far as low-power CPUs are concerned, Intel actually has an ARM license, through an earlier acquisition. "

That makes the circle round then.. I recall Intel was doing something with Xscale (Arm stuff) for a while but they went away from that... Maybe they now hope to do better ?

[hypermark]

I sold a company to Wind River (device management vendor, Rapid Logic) and have partnered with Intel on/off for 13+ years so I have a pretty well formed perspective on the deal, which I blogged about in:

Closing the Book on Embedded: Intel buys Wind River
http://bit.ly/2I9ks

Check it out if interested.

Mark