Wind 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.
