News Release
Wind River Battles COVID-19 by Donating Software and Technical Expertise to Accelerate Mission-Critical Innovation While Most Are Working from Home


ALAMEDA, CA – April 8, 2020 – Wind River®, a leader in delivering software for the intelligent edge, today announced it has launched an important initiative to enable and accelerate the innovation of mission-critical systems during the COVID-19 pandemic. The actions include donating software and design and implementation services for those making a difference in the COVID-19 battle, while facing challenges as they address working remotely from home and technical upskilling.

“The current COVID-19 crisis is fundamentally changing our reality with 81%* expecting a negative effect on their workplace as a result. A rapid response with innovation to help our customers and communities is more critical now than ever,” said Kevin Dallas, CEO and President of Wind River. “In moments of seismic change, Wind River is committed to helping the industry navigate and adapt to a challenging new climate in any way we can, and it is essential for us to step up and rally together in order to battle this pandemic.”

A global leader with nearly four decades of experience powering the safest, most secure mission-critical systems in the world, Wind River is opening up access to its IP and expertise for the industry to leverage. The access is for companies manufacturing medical, 5G network, and industrial automation equipment that support the global battle against COVID-19. This includes Wind River customers like Draeger, GE Healthcare, and Fedegari Autoclavi, among others that are manufacturing massive quantities of life-saving products, such as ventilators, patient monitors, and medical instrumentation devices.

For qualified companies, Wind River is donating software and services from its industry-leading portfolio for the intelligent edge. The actions Wind River is taking will address the significant challenges created by the pandemic, such as limited access to labs with appropriate hardware for development and testing, delays in the supply chains that put development timelines at risk, and barriers to innovation.

For a limited time, the company is offering the following tools, software, and services, which will be especially critical given the drastically increased number of workforces at home under pressure to design, develop, and deploy systems.


  • For development of mission-critical systems: VxWorks® real-time operating system seat increases for teams working from home requiring additional development licenses.

  • For quick prototyping of new designs for edge devices: Wind River Linux commercial embedded platform freely available for download on GitHub.

  • For access to virtual hardware target through full system simulation: Wind River Simics® to allow development and testing to proceed in the face of supply challenges, address hardware availability issues, and help team members working from home be more effective.

  • For online mentoring and training to ensure teams working from home have access to the latest know-how and can deal with skill shortagesWind River Education Services online courses in the VxWorks, Linux, and Simics Essentials series. Research shows that industrial product companies investing 3.5 times more than their competition in reskilling workers are also more confident about their abilities to handle uncertain futures by 250% compared to their peers.**

  • For continued technology innovation and experimentationWind River Labs developer site that offers a freely available VxWorks software developer kit (SDK) and access to cutting edge software projects, open source integrations and new technologies. The SDK also includes an open source board support package for Raspberry Pi and UP Squared hardware for the developer community to innovate—and for the community of kids at home from school looking to explore and experiment.

  • For expedited delivery of mission-critical systems: Wind River technical design and implementation services.



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For more information on Wind River’s COVID-19 offering visit: www.windriver.com/covid19 or contact mychal.mccabe@windriver.com.

*Gallup, U.S. Employees Increasingly Seeing COVID-19 Effects at Work, March 2020

**Forbes Insights/inc.digital, 2019

About Wind River

Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for the intelligent edge. The company’s technology has been powering the safest, most secure devices in the world since 1981 and is found in more than 2 billion products. Wind River offers a comprehensive portfolio, supported by world-class global professional services and support and a broad partner ecosystem. Wind River software and expertise are accelerating digital transformation of critical infrastructure systems that demand the highest levels of safety, security, performance, and reliability. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com.

 

 

 

Contact Information
Jessica Miller
Global Corporate Communications