Intel to acquire Wind River for $884 million

Intel said Thursday that it has agreed to acquire Wind River Systems for a total of about $884 million in cash, in an effort to bolster its offerings in the market for processors for embedded systems and mobile devices.

The move is part of Intel's plan to grow beyond its traditional stronghold in the PC market, the company said in a release. Intel is paying $11.50 per share in cash for Wind River.

"This acquisition will bring us complementary, market-leading software assets and an incredibly talented group of people to help us continue to grow our embedded systems and mobile device capabilities," said Renee James, Intel vice president and general manager of the company's Software and Services Group, in a statement.

The board of directors of Wind River has approved the deal, which the companies expect to close by the end of the third quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions to which the companies have agreed.

After the deal, Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model, Intel said.

Wind River, based in Alameda, California, was founded in 1981 and has more than 1,600 employees. The company reported revenue of $359.7 million in his fiscal year that ended Jan. 31.

Wind River develops operating systems, middleware and software design tools for embedded computing systems. VxWorks, an embedded operating system, and Wind River Linux are among its main products.

In February, Wind River announced plans to acquire Tilcon Software, a Canadian developer of graphical user interfaces for embedded devices, for $3.5 million.

In January, Wind River announced that it had developed software code that will help enable support for open source Android mobile software running on larger screen-sized mobile computing devices using Snapdragon chipsets from Qualcomm.

IDG News Service

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