WiMAX
Wind River specialises in the kind of operating systems and middleware you would find in embedded systems, such as smart phones, mobile Internet devices, in-car systems and a number of industrial applications.
This acquisition is designed to strengthen Intel's offering in the embedded space, where one of the incumbent big players is, you guessed it, ARM.
Intel's other angle at the mobile phone market comes in the form of WiMAX, which it hopes will become the mobile network of choice for the next generation of smart mobile devices.
Intel Capital - Intel's investment arm - has chucked $43 million at Japanese UQ Communications, which is a provider of WiMAX mobile services. Immediately after, the two companies announced their extended collaboration to bring WiMAX services to the Japanese market, commencing 1 July 2009.
This coincides with a big push from Intel for OEMs to embed WiMAX connectivity into some of their notebooks as part of the Centrino 2 platform, so it looks like Intel's WiMAX diversification is set to accelerate in the second half of this year.
