The Client

Wind River Systems, Inc. is a leading supplier of software solutions and development tools for the microprocessors and companion software collectively known as embedded systems. Multiple mergers and acquisitions helped establish Wind River’s reputation as a market leader, but, with exponential growth, the company was beset with growing pains.

The Challenge

To achieve its strategic vision of becoming a $1 billion company, management felt that the organization needed more consistent product release and distribution processes, better-integrated information systems, and a more uniform product coding system. Additionally, management felt that it was time to offer stronger support to its sales force with better product bundling and richer customer data. Management set a goal of reducing the product release cycle ?the time between a product’s release to manufacturing and first shipment to customers—to only 24 hours.

The Solution

We quickly identified two fundamental objectives for the transformation effort:

• To improve the company’s soft-ware release process swiftly
• To improve Wind River’s customer interactions dramatically with a real-time customer information database

The Benefits

The solution simplified and shortened the manufacturing and shipping processes with digital licensing technology that places all versions of a single product on one CD. This solution also revamped all internal and customer-facing processes that were affected by the new software manufacturing and marketing approach. Wind River’s processes are supported with an integrated environment that encompasses the product development infrastructure and back-office operational systems. Wind River now gives its customers access to a CD feature that allows them to experiment with additional products and features on a trial basis.

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