Wind River Systems, also known as Wind River (trademarked as Wndrvr), is an

Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...

–based company, subsidiary of

Aptiv Aptiv PLC is an Irish- American automotive technology supplier with headquarters in Dublin. Aptiv grew out of the now-defunct American company, Delphi Automotive Systems, which itself was formerly a component of General Motors. History The co ...

PLC. The company develops

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded ...

and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, industry-specific software, simulation technology, development tools and

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement ...

History

Wind River Systems was formed by a partnership of Jerry Fiddler and Dave Wilner. Until 1981, Fiddler had worked at

Berkeley Lab Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

writing software for

control system A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial ...

s, and wanted to pursue a career in

computer generated music Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ...

, which he funded through a consultancy business focused on

real-time operating system A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which m ...

s. His early clients included the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

and film director

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

, for whom he designed a unique film editing system. Wilner, a former colleague at Berkeley Lab, joined Fiddler to form Wind River Systems in 1983. In 2009, Wind River was acquired by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...

. In 2018, Intel spun out its Wind River division, which was then acquired by

TPG Capital TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth c ...

. On January 11, 2022, Wind River announced that it was acquired by

, an auto parts company, for $4.3 billion in cash. The company's key milestones include:
/ref> * 1983: Wind River is incorporated in 1983 with each partner contributing $3,000 and a desk to the business. The company was named for Wind River, Wyoming, where Fiddler had vacationed that year * 1987: Wind River introduces

VxWorks VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, determi ...

, a leading real-time operating system for embedded devices. * 1995: VxWorks launches into space on the NASA Clementine moon probe. Also, the Tornado integrated development environment is launched and wins EDN's Embedded Development Software Innovation of the Year award as the first graphically oriented development environment for embedded * 1997: VxWorks, the real-time operating system for NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission, lands on Mars * 1999: Acquisition of one of their major competitors, Integrated Systems Inc., makers of pSOS. Wind River has since discontinued the pSOS product line and has recommended existing pSOS customers move to VxWorks. * 2001: Wind River Systems acquired Belgian software company Eonic Systems, the developer of Virtuoso RTOS for DSPs. In November 2015, Wind River Systems renamed the operating system to Rocket, made it open-source and royalty-free. In 2016, Rocket was incorporated into Zephyr RTOS hosted by

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Addi ...

. * 2004: Wind River officially enters the embedded Linux market, with a Carrier Grade Linux platform targeting the networking & communications infrastructure industry. Also, NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, powered by VxWorks,Insid
NASA's Curiosity
It's an Apple Airport Extreme… with wheels, ExtremeTech land on Mars. Wind River helped in manufacturing the

IntelliStar WeatherStar (sometimes rendered Weather Star or WeatherSTAR; "STAR" being an acronym for Satellite Transponder Addressable Receiver) is the technology used by American cable and satellite television network The Weather Channel (TWC) to generate i ...

for

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...

. The IntelliStar is used at Cable Headends to insert Local Weather into The Weather Channel's national programming. * 2007: Wind River joins Google's

Open Handset Alliance The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, ...

as an original Linux commercialization partner. * 2008: Wind River establishes the embedded Linux market share lead with greater than 30 percent of total market revenue, four years after entering the market. * 2009: Intel acquires Wind River for approximately $884 million and it becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. Wind River launches a commercial Android software platform. Wind River becomes a founding member of the GENIVI Alliance, now called COVESA (Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance). * 2010: Wind River adds Simics, a full system simulator, to its product portfolio. VxWorks becomes the first RTOS to be certified under Wurldtech's Achilles certification program, a standard for industrial cyber security. Wind River partners with Intel and the Linux Foundation to create the Yocto Project, an open source collaboration project providing templates, tools and methods to help developers create embedded Linux-based systems. * 2012: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully lands Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, powered by Wind River technology. Wind River debuts software platform targeted at gateways and hubs for the

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...

. * 2013: Wind River becomes part of Intel's Internet of Things Group (IOTG), but remains a wholly owned subsidiary. Barry Mainz assumes the position of President. * 2014: Wind River introduces its software for

network functions virtualization Network functions virtualization (NFV) is a network architecture concept that leverages the IT virtualization technologies to virtualize entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may connect, or chain together, to create ...

(NFV) applications, as well as its next-generation VxWorks platform reinvented for the Internet of Things. * 2014: Wind River fined $750,000 by

Bureau of Industry and Security The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that deals with issues involving national security and high technology. A principal goal for the bureau is helping stop the proliferation of weapo ...

for exporting encryption technology to countries including Israel and South Korea. * 2015: the company was accused of repeated trademark and licensing violations of the Grsecurity project, which as response has restricted its code to commercial partners only. * 2016: Intel announced that it intended to fully integrate Wind River into one of its divisions (thus ending Wind River's status as a wholly owned subsidiary,) although the scheduled completion date of this action has not been made public. Barry Mainz left the company to become President and CEO of

MobileIron MobileIron Inc. was an American software company that provided unified endpoint and enterprise mobility management (EMM) for mobile devices, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). The company announced in September 2020 it was being acquired ...

and Jim Douglas assumes the position of President. * 2018: Intel divested Wind River Systems to alternative asset fund manager TPG under undisclosed terms. *2018: Ford selects Wind River Over-the-Air Update Technology. *2018: NASA's

InSight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...

lands on Mars with VxWorks operating system. *2019: Wind River became the first OpenChain 2.0 Conformant. *2020: Kevin Dallas named to role of CEO and member of the Board of Directors. *2020:

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

uses Wind River's software infrastructure for its deployment of virtualized 5G RAN. *2020: Wind River becomes first and only to achieve The Open Group FACE™ Conformance for Linux. *2021:

Perseverance Perseverance may refer to: Behaviour * Psychological resilience * Perseverance of the saints, a Protestant Christian teaching * Assurance (theology) Geography * Perseverance, Queensland, a locality in Australia * Perseverance Island, Seychelles ...

Mars becomes fourth Mars rover running VxWorks operating system. *2021:

Vodafone Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. , Vod ...

selects Wind River as a partner to build Europe's first commercial open RAN network. *2022: Wind River was acquired by Aptiv from TPG Capital for $4.3 billion in cash.

Products

Among the company's products are the

, the Wind River Linux operating system, and the

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three c ...

-based Wind River Workbench IDE. VxWorks began as an add-on to the VRTX operating system in the early 1980s. Wind River Workbench superseded the previous ''Tornado'' environment.Company Overview o
Wind River Systems
Inc., Bloomberg Businessweek

VxWorks

VxWorks is the original flagship product of Wind River. It is a real-time operating system (

RTOS A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which ...

) intended for embedded and critical infrastructure devices and systems. It supports multicore processors, 32-bit and 64-bit, for several architectures including

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

, and

Power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may a ...

and has over one hundred board support packages ( BSPs) for different hardware systems. VxWorks is a real time and deterministic operating system.

Wind River Linux

Wind River's Linux product is source code and a build system that generate runtime images suitable for embedded devices. Historically, Wind River Linux has supported a variety of architectures, including

, MIPS,

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...

, IA32 and

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system develope ...

. The current release of Wind River Linux supports a variety of

, IA32, and

IA64 IA-64 (Intel Itanium architecture) is the instruction set architecture (ISA) of the Itanium family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors. The basic ISA specification originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was subsequently implemented by Intel in coll ...

platforms with both standard and realtime (preempt_rt) kernels. Wind River charges a subscription to provide commercial bug and CVE fixes for their Linux products. Pricing is project-based, with a flat fee for each solution built on top of Wind River Linux. There is no per-device subscription or royalty. The key capabilities for Wind River Linux are 10 year commercial support life, complete customization including kernel changes, reproducible customizations, wide range of hardware support through Board Support Packages (BSP) that are ported, maintained, and tested by Wind River.

Early History

In 2004, Wind River announced a partnership with

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

to create a new

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

-based distribution for embedded devices. Wind River has since ended its partnership with Red Hat and now ships its own Linux distribution optimized for embedded Linux development. Wind River released the first version of its embedded Linux distribution, Platform for Network Equipment - Linux Edition (PNE-LE) 1.0 in 2005. It was registered against the Carrier Grade Linux 2.0 specification and supported IA32 and PPC architectures. They added other platforms in subsequent releases, General Purpose Platform - Linux Edition (GPP-LE) and Platform for Consumer Devices - Linux Edition PCD-LE) starting in version 1.4. In 2013 Wind River announced Wind River Linux 6.0.Wind River Linux 6
, Yocto Project webpage Wind River Systems acquired FSMLabs embedded technology in February 2007 and made a version available as Wind River Real-Time Core for Wind River Linux. As of August 2011, Wind River has discontinued the Wind River Real-Time Core product line, effectively ending commercial support for the RTLinux product. On August 7, 2007, Palm Inc. announced it would use Wind River Systems Linux for its (later aborted)

Palm Foleo The Palm Foleo was a planned subnotebook computer that was announced by mobile device manufacturer Palm Inc. on May 30, 2007, and canceled three months later. It intended to serve as a companion for smartphones including Palm's own Treo line. T ...

. In 2008, Wind River announced cooperation with BMW,

and

Magneti Marelli Magneti Marelli S.p.A. () is an Italian developer and manufacturer of components for the automotive industry. The firm is headquartered in Corbetta, Italy, and includes 86 manufacturing plants, 12 R&D centres, and 26 application centers in 19 c ...

for development of a

-based

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

platform to control in-car electronics, which was extended in the

GENIVI Alliance GENIVI Alliance was rebranded as the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance (COVESA) in October 2021 and operates under that name. COVESA is a non-profit automotive industry alliance that develops reference approaches for integrating operating systems ...

in 2009.

Yocto Project

In 2012, Wind River introduced a version of Linux that was developed from the

Yocto Project The Yocto Project is a Linux Foundation collaborative open source project whose goal is to produce tools and processes that enable the creation of Linux distributions for embedded and IoT software that are independent of the underlying architectu ...

open source development infrastructure and achieved Yocto project compatible registration. All subsequent releases of Wind River Linux is based on the Yocto Project.

Wind River Linux release history

Wind River has historically released a new Wind River Linux LTS (Long Term Support) about every year that are generally based on the then current Linux Kernel LTS release and the latest Yocto Project release.

Wind River Linux Distro

In 2022, Wind River launched a new product, Wind River Linux Distro, that is a binary Linux distribution based on the Wind River Linux source-based product. The Distro is intended for embedded solution developers that need a commercially supported Linux for their project, but do not need the extensive customization capabilities of the Yocto Project-based Wind River Linux. The key features are quick time to value, customization via tools such as the Linux Assembly Tool & an RPM package feed, and updates via OSTree. Developers can download a free version of the Wind River Linux Distro by going t
https://www.windriver.com/products/linux/download
A number of hardware platforms are enabled by the Distro. Commercial support is currently available for a subset of the enabled platforms.

Simics

Simics Simics is a full-system simulator or virtual platform used to run unchanged production binaries of the target hardware. Simics was originally developed by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), and then spun off to Virtutech for commer ...

is a full-system simulator used by software developers to simulate the hardware of complex electronic systems.

Wind River Studio

Wind River Studio is a cloud-native platform for the deployment and servicing of mission-critical intelligent edge systems.

Acquisitions

*1991: Assets of ITRA (

Vannes Vannes (; br, Gwened) is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago. History Celtic Era The name ''Vannes'' comes from the Veneti, a seafaring Celtic people who live ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

) *1997: DSP Foundry (WiSP RTOS for Motorola DSP563xx family) *1999: Integrated Systems Inc. ( pSOS+) *2000: Merge staff of Dragonfly Software Consulting *2000: Embedded Support Tools Corp. (ESTC) *2000: ICEsoft (

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

) *2000: AudeSi Technologies Inc. (

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

, Canada) *2001: Eonic Systems (Virtuoso RTOS) *2001:

Berkeley Software Design Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI or, later, BSDi), was a corporation which developed, sold licenses for, and supported BSD/OS (originally known as BSD/386), a commercial and partially proprietary variant of the BSD Unix operating system for ...

Inc. (BSDI) *2005: ScopeTools business unit from Real-Time Innovations *2006: Interpeak AB (

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

) *2007: Assets of FSMLabs (

Socorro, New Mexico Socorro (, '' sə-KOR-oh'') is a city in Socorro County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is in the Rio Grande Valley at an elevation of . In 2010 the population was 9,051. It is the county seat of Socorro County. Socorro is located south of ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

) *2008: MIZI (

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

) *2009: Tilcon Software Limited (

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada) *2010:

Virtutech Virtutech was a company founded in 1998 as a spin-off from the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), to commercially develop its Simics computer architecture simulator software. In 2004, Virtutech accepted investment and moved headquarter ...

(

) *2011: Switch++ ( Santa Clara,

) *2016 Arynga *2020 Star Labs

References

External links

Wind River Systems company website
{{Authority control Software companies of the United States Intel acquisitions Linux companies Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Alameda, California Companies based in Berkeley, California American companies established in 1981 Software companies established in 1981 1981 establishments in California 2009 mergers and acquisitions 2022 mergers and acquisitions