In the almost 40 years of its existence, Wind River has developed from a manufacturer of a real-time kernel to a comprehensive software service provider for industrial device software. There are variants of the 'VxWorks' operating system for aviation and the military, and with the boom in the telecommunications markets at the turn of the millennium, Wind River began to develop and maintain its own Linux distribution. In addition, development environments, compilers, debuggers and other tools were added - also through the acquisition of other software providers.

There was only a relatively meaningless comment from Intel about the acquisition: "This move is intended to sharpen our focus on growth opportunities that align with Intel's data-centric strategy," said Tom Lantzsch, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group at Intel, not forgetting to add that "Wind River will remain an important ecosystem partner" for Intel.

The Wind River press release contains further quotes from TPG and Wind River CEO Jim Douglas, in which the word "independent" is probably the key to understanding this acquisition. After all, there has always been criticism and doubts as to whether Wind River, as part of Intel, would prioritize the further development of its software for other architectures in the same way.

Nehal Raj, Partner and Head of Technology at TPG says: "We are excited about the prospects for Wind River as an independent company" and Jim Douglas is quoted as saying: "This acquisition will establish Wind River as a leading independent software provider...". So it's obviously about making Wind River independent of Intel again. Douglas also hopes that TPG will provide the flexibility and financial resources for further growth. From a technological perspective, Wind River has been rather quiet in recent years - despite the IoT boom with its many software challenges. Nehal Raj says: "We want to build on the company's strong foundation by investing in organic and inorganic growth."

Jim Douglas and his existing management team will continue to run the independent Wind River after completion of the transaction, which is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2018.