Intel completes Wind River acquisition

Intel completed its acquisition of the embedded software firm Wind River Systems on Friday.

The deal, through which Intel bought Wind River for around $884m (£545m), was announced at the start of June. According to the chipmaker, the purchase is part of Intel's strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server markets.

Wind River is now a wholly owned part of Intel's software and services group.

"The acquisition will deliver to Intel robust software capabilities in embedded systems and mobile devices, both important growth areas for the company," Intel software and services chief Renee James said in a statement. "This multi-billion-dollar market segment is increasingly becoming connected and more intelligent, requiring supporting applications and services as well as full internet functionality."

Wind River specialises in middleware and other embedded software, found in products ranging from mobile phones and set-top boxes to cars and the Mars rovers. The California-based company is also a member of a variety of mobile industry open-source groups, including the Open Handset Alliance and the LiMo Foundation.

Intel has not traditionally had much of a presence in the mobile-handset chipset market — an area dominated by ARM architecture — but in late June, it announced an alliance with phone manufacturer Nokia. This deal will see collaboration between the two companies on several mobile open-source projects, including Moblin and Maemo, as well as Intel licensing Nokia's 3G technology.

Subsequent to the announcement of its takeover by Intel, Wind River released a hypervisor for embedded systems, so multiple operating systems can be run on the same devices. The software currently supports Intel and PowerPC architecture, although Wind River said at the time that ARM and Mips support would follow.