By buying software company Wind River for $4.3 billion in cash, vendor Aptiv Inc. is not just acquiring the technology it will need as vehicles become increasingly software-driven. It will also add a staff that includes more than 1,000 technical employees at a time when software developers, engineers, data analysts and other highly skilled workers have never been in greater demand in the automotive industry.
“As a company, you have to be very careful that you have the right people to analyze this data and manage it, because there will be a lot of unwanted data,” said Carla Bailo, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research at Ann. Arbour, Mich. “That piece of human capital is vital, and if you don’t have it, you better start partnering with those who do. I think that’s exactly what Aptiv is doing with Wind River.”
The Aptiv-Wind River deal comes as automakers, suppliers and tech companies spend billions of dollars building new software capabilities for vehicles, enabling more over-the-air updates that the industry says hopes will provide consumers with desirable features and increase service revenue.
Wind River, founded in 1983 and more recently owned by private equity group TPG Capital, develops software and cloud systems for several industries, including automotive, aerospace, defense and telecommunications. Aptiv hopes Wind River’s expertise in these areas will help it seek new business for its automotive software stack.
“We believe that some of the big answers to some of the big questions facing automotive about how to effectively deploy software in fleets will actually come from other industries,” said Aptiv CFO Joe Massaro. , in a call with analysts. week. “Wind River has a lot of that know-how and a lot of that understanding.”
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