Wind River Gateway Helps Equipment Providers Move to Recurring Revenue Models

Wind River is moving beyond just offering its VxWorks operating system and Linux distribution, to also offer middleware and complete solutions. One deliverable of this new direction is a turnkey gateway the company developed with its owner, Intel.

Ido Sarig, vice president and general manager of IoT solutions at Wind River, who met with MSPToday yesterday at ITEXPO in Las Vegas, explained that the gateway targets existing intelligent devices not connected to the Internet. For example, a company that sells industrial HVAC equipment could use the intelligent gateway to connect to and remotely check, manage, and maintain that equipment. That can be a lot easier and cost efficient than sending a technician out onto a hotel roof to check the equipment sensors and do other troubleshooting; initiate a reboot of the equipment; or install new software.

Of course, this is just one example of a scenario in which the gateway could come into play. It could also be leveraged by a manufacturer of medical devices, or by just about any other provider of sophisticated equipment.

But whatever the equipment, the point is that connecting such equipment sets up the company that sells the gear to move from a one-time sale to a recurring revenue model through which it can offer ongoing maintenance and other value-added services. For example, in the case of an HVAC company, it could do preheating or precooling in an effort to lower its customers’ energy costs. A medical device outfit, meanwhile, could potentially aggregate patient information garnered by its blood monitors to provide insurance companies with information to help them assess what treatments are most effective and when.

While other companies in the market place offer similar gateway solutions, what’s unique about the Wind River gateway, according to Sarig, is that it brings together silicon from Intel that is optimized to work with Wind River’s middleware, and it adds in security technology from McAfee – with all three pieces working seamlessly out of the box.