Wind River wins Boeing deal with Army
Boeing will use company's software development tools to create programs for a major Army project.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
About 2,000 Boeing programmers will use Wind River Workbench to create software used in an Army program called the Future Combat System, the company plans to announce Friday. That Army project spans a broad swath of computing technology that includes equipment for soldiers, military communications networks and 18 combat systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles.
With average Workbench costs running between $7,000 and $10,000 per developer, the deal is estimated to be worth between $14 million and $20 million, according to Wind River. There could be other financial benefits too: Wind River's VxWorks and Linux operating system products are expected to be used in some of the equipment.
That's a pretty significant deal for the Alameda, Calif.-based company. For comparison, in the company's most recent quarter, ended Jan. 31, Wind River had revenue of $70.2 million.
Workbench is based on the open-source Eclipse development tool project.