Zinc Software Inc was duly acquired by Wind River Systems Inc yesterday (CI No 3,446). Founder Robert Bishop told Computergram that Pleasant Grove, Utah-based Zinc last year identified embedded systems as a market opportunity with a big hole in it – graphical user interfaces. Before that it had sold its class libraries to desktop developers using Visual C++, Borland and Watcom compilers and development environments, boasting the support for 16-bit Windows and DOS that Microsoft itself had discontinued. It also built up a strong base of Unix developers working on Unix to NT integration, now its second biggest market after embedded systems. The first embedded port was to Integrated Systems Inc’s pSOS, followed by Wind River’s VxWorks, at which time, says Bishop, Wind River started realizing that Zinc technology could easily be snapped into its own, and that it might be more economical to buy the company rather than to enter into long-term licensing agreements. Zinc will operate as an independent subsidiary and continue to offer its technology to rival RTOS vendors, presenting its software to a market which has yet to establish any standards. Wind River will receive no advanced information or preferential treatment. Bishop says he expects the Zinc Application Framework to be available on the big five embedded systems in the not too distant future – the other three being Microware Systems Inc (OS-9), Microtek Research Inc (VRTX) and QNX Software Systems Ltd. It could be used with tier two embedded systems companies such as Accelerated Technology Inc’s Nucleus and Express Logic Inc’s ThreadX as well, says Bishop, and to add graphics to in-house proprietary embedded systems. Bishop doesn’t have a high opinion of Microsoft Corp’s Windows CE, and although he says the move is not about directly competing with CE, he refers approvingly to those who have characterized the Framework as Windows without the crashes. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, Wind River management said its was a fairly small deal and described the purchase as not material. The acquisition is expected to be accretive and Wind River said that its second quarter was proceeding nicely. Analysts surveyed by First Call are expecting earnings of $0.19 per share. Zinc is the third graphics related acquisition Wind River has made this year, following the $15.2m charge it took in the fourth quarter resulting from the acquisition of Network Computer Inc, and Objective Software Technology Ltd back in May (CI No 3,341).
