Wind River and Kontron today announced a global, multi-year agreement under which Kontron will distribute Wind River’s industry leading VxWorks and Wind River Linux operating systems. This agreement extends a decade-long collaboration, and is expected to extend the software and service offerings of Wind River and Kontron. The two companies will initially target the industrial, medical, military and aerospace, transportation, and networking market segments.

Kontron also joins the Wind River Partner Validation Program, initially with its nanoETXexpress-SP module validated for use with VxWorks 6.7. By working together to validate Wind River’s embedded operating systems with leading partner software and hardware, Wind River and its partners are together providing a pre-validated solution stack to directly address integration costs, time-to-market, and long-term support. To learn more about the Wind River Partner Validation Program, visit http://www.windriver.com/partners/partner-validation.html.

“Our customers will benefit from the closer alignment with Wind River across all market segments and regions,” said Dirk Finstel, chief technology officer, Kontron AG. “This distribution agreement enables us to further reduce time-to-market requirements, and increase our value-added services by providing our customers a richer out-of-the-box experience with a compelling set of tools and operating system options. In parallel, Kontron will continue to leverage its strategic relationship with Wind River to deliver tightly integrated solutions that help reduce our customers’ total cost of ownership. The inclusion of the Kontron nanoETXexpress-SP in the Wind River Partner Validation Program, including optimized VxWorks 6.7 platform evaluation in the box, is a good example.”

“The distribution agreement between Wind River and Kontron will allow both companies to more quickly respond to new design win opportunities,” noted Roger Williams, vice president, Strategic Alliances, Wind River. “I am also pleased that Kontron’s nanoETXexpress-SP is the first embedded module to be listed with our Partner Validation Program. With both distribution and market-leading solutions in place, both companies are well positioned to capture next-generation design wins in a number of key vertical market segments.”

Under terms of the distribution agreement, Kontron will be able to resell VxWorks production licenses, and also agrees to work with Wind River to proliferate Wind River Linux for use by joint customers. Wind River will continue to provide hardware and software tools, development environments, source code and support contracts for joint customers.

About Wind River

Wind River, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), is the global leader in Device Software Optimization (DSO). Wind River enables companies to develop, run and manage device software faster, better, at lower cost and more reliably. Wind River platforms are pre-integrated, fully standardized, enterprise-wide development solutions. They reduce effort, cost and risk and optimize quality and reliability at all phases of the device software development process, from concept to deployed product.

Founded in 1981, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, Calif., with operations worldwide. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com.

About Kontron

Kontron designs and manufactures embedded and communications standards-based, rugged COTS and custom solutions for OEMs, systems integrators, and application providers in a variety of markets. Kontron engineering and manufacturing facilities, located throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, work together with streamlined global sales and support services to help customers reduce their time-to-market and gain a competitive advantage. Kontron’s diverse product portfolio includes: boards & mezzanines, Computer-on-Modules, HMIs & displays, systems & platforms, and rugged & custom capabilities. Kontron is a Premier member of the Intel^® Embedded Alliance and has been a VDC Platinum Vendor for Embedded Computer Boards 5 years running. Kontron is listed on the German TecDAX stock exchange under the symbol "KBC". For more information, please visit: http://www.kontron.com