Tag: wind river

Wind River starts downsizing

Posted on July 25, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Wind River Systems is laying off staff after Intel sold the industrial Internet of Things software outfit to a private equity firm last month.

More than 64 employees, including a vice president, have cleaned out their desks in California and it appears that the company will make layoffs at its other offices across the world.

Wind River, which develops embedded operating systems, became an independent company in June after Intel completed its sale of the business to TPG Capital, a private equity firm that bought McAfee from Intel in 2017. McAfee had also made layoffs shortly after it was acquired.

The deal to sell Wind River was announced in early April while Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel was under the leadership of former CEO Brian Krzanich, who was ousted last month following the disclosure of a relationship he had with a former employee that broke company policy. Intel had acquired Wind River in 2009.

When the deal was announced, Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group Tom Lantzsch said the spinout of Wind River was “designed to sharpen our focus on growth opportunities that align to Intel’s data-centric strategy,” despite industrial IoT remaining a part of that strategy. Wind River had been a part of Intel’s IoT Group, whose annual revenue grew 20 percent to $3.2 billion last year, but the subsidiary had been a small percentage of that business, a source said at the time. Intel, however, did say that Wind River was profitable while declining to break out its sales.

Intel flogs Wind River

Posted on April 4, 2018 by - News

217ba0277f5d3df269c8e25024247c2e--victorian-london-victorian-lifeIntel is flogging its industrial Internet of Things software provider Wind River to private equity firm TPG Capital.

Wind River said the transaction would result in it becoming independent. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the second quarter.

It is a little odd for Intel to dump Wind River which has been a player in the industrial IoT market and a strategic priority for Chipzilla.

However, Tom Lantzsch, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s IoT group, said the sale of Wind River is “designed to sharpen our focus on growth opportunities that align to Intel’s data-centric strategy”. Words, words, words.

“Wind River will remain an important ecosystem partner, and we will continue to collaborate on critical software-defined infrastructure opportunities to advance an autonomous future. We expect this transition will be seamless for our mutual customers and partners.”

An Intel spokeswoman claimed the sale of Wind River doesn’t run counter to the company’s strategic focus on IoT, adding that the company “will continue to be an important industry partner”.

Wind River is part of Intel’s Internet of Things Group, whose annual revenue grew 20 percent to $3.2 billion last year, but the subsidiary has been a small percentage of that business group, according to a source close to Intel. The company declined to break out Wind River’s sales but said it is profitable.

Chipzilla acquired Wind River in 2009 as part of its effort to grow beyond the PC and server markets. The business, which had been operating somewhat like an independent subsidiary, was then fully integrated within Intel in 2017 as part of an effort to better align Wind River with other Intel groups.

 

HP teams up with Wind River on Open Stack

Posted on November 11, 2014 by - News

founding_billDave_tcm_245_1630145Maker of jolly expensive printer ink, HP has forged a glorious alliance with Wind River to provide customers with a network functions virtualisation (NFV) solution based on HP’s Helion OpenStack.

Products which are spawned by the new alliance will enable carrier-grade   NFV capabilities.

The companies worked on the project jointly, taking the HP Helion OpenStack offering and Wind River’s carrier-grade technologies to further the already developing OpenStack NFV market. According to OpenStack-focused vendor Mirantis, telecommunications companies have been experiencing success with OpenStack-based NFV. Although still a new function, it appears that it is beginning to catch on with customers and vendors alike.

In a statement, the pair said that they wanted to create a product which allowed for the benefits of cloud computing, while meeting their rigorous reliability, performance and management requirements.

Saar Gillai, senior vice president and COO of HP Cloud and general manager for NFV at HP, in a prepared statement said the HP and Wind River project would provide a fully integrated and supported HP Helion cloud solution for carrier grade NFV.

“ We will also work together to enhance OpenStack technology to help ensure it evolves to meet carrier grade specifications,” Gillai said.

The new service will help cloud services providers compete better in a changing market. With the OpenStack NFV offering, HP and Wind River expect CSPs will be able to accelerate the transformation of their networks while also lower the total cost of ownership by adopting commercial, off-the-shelf hardware, they claim.

Carrier-grade NFV capabilities are not quite ready for customers, though. There is still some work to do to get the HP/WindRiver OpenStack NFV solution together, but the companies plan to launch in 2015.

Jim Douglas, senior vice president and CMO of Wind River said the telecom industry was eager to tap into the vast potential of NFV.

“By taking advantage of a virtualized or cloud environment, service providers can easily and quickly introduce new high-value services while reducing costs. In every case, maintaining carrier grade reliability is critical,” Douglas said.