John,
Have you seen the EETimes article - "Be, Wind River next to jump into Net Appliances"
bigcharts.com
--alan
> Indeed, it appears that Wind River's bid last year to acquire Integrated
> Systems Inc. was also a bid to play in the consumer market, terra incognita
> for the Alameda, Calif., real-time operating-system powerhouse. Shareholder
> meetings for both companies are scheduled for Feb. 15, and the deal is
> expected to close then.
>
> "Fundamentally, [the Net-centric market] is what's behind the acquisition of
> ISI, because I can tell you, you can't be a little pipsqueak and play in that
> space," said Curt Schacker, vice president of marketing. Schacker said the
> company is "in the throes of planning" a unified product strategy for the
> Internet, and will make an announcement at an ESC press conference Feb. 29.
And, according to WIND's Curt Schacker: "We can't keep up with the demand..."
> For its part, Wind River is attempting to make itself more visible to OEMs. To
> that end, the company this year will embark on a marketing campaign to promote
> the VxWorks brand name, hoping to become a prime alternative to OEMs who
> reject WinCE. "We want to provide adequate technology and be there with the
> appropriate business model so they have some place to turn to," Schacker said.
>
> Wind River plans to sell its Tornado development environment directly to
> consumer OEMs, but the company also will work on selling indirectly through
> value-added resellers (VARs). For example, the software from Liberate
> Technologies Inc. being sold into the set-top market is based on VxWorks, with
> special middleware added. Both Liberate and Wind River get royalties on the
> products produced.
>
> Another VAR example is the company's bundling deal with Lucent Technologies
> Inc., under which Lucent will include VxWorks with its single-chip Internet
> Protocol telephone.
>
> Wind River said it also will do custom work, taking a page from the Cadence
> Design Systems book by offering direct aid to engineers in developing OEMs'
> products. Those services "may be the fastest-growing part of our business
> right now, because we're starting from a small base," Schacker said. "We can't
> keep up with the demand." |
