Intel has completed its $884 million acquisition of Wind River, a key part of the chip maker’s plan to grow its product mix beyond PC and server chips.
The deal, which was first announced June 4 and closed July 17, will add to Intel’s small but growing software business. Wind River makes embedded software.
“The acquisition will deliver to Intel robust software capabilities in embedded systems and mobile devices, both important growth areas for the company,” Renee James, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Software and Services Group, 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 is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, and will continue developing commercial-grade software platforms for hardware architectures that are optimized for the embedded and mobile markets.
Intel is looking to move deeper into such areas as the embedded market and mobile handheld devices, including smartphones, MIDs (mobile Internet devices) and consumer electronics. The company is making a strong push into the mobile space with its Atom processor technology, which the chip maker introduced a year ago and initially was aimed at the burgeoning netbook space. However, Intel officials since have been pushing Atom into other areas, as well.
In the second-quarter numbers released by Intel July 14, the chip maker said that Atom-related revenues were $362 million, up 65 percent from the first quarter.
