Ottawa is often touted as Canada’s innovation capital because of its vibrant tech ecosystem and the numerous stories of tech companies finding success in this city.
Today, we talk about another company’s success in Ottawa: Wind River, which recently announced the launch of eLxr Pro, its commercial enterprise Linux offering, to address the unique needs of cloud-to-edge deployments.
Headquartered in the United States, Wind River is a technology company that helps customers solve complex technological challenges on its journey toward the software-defined world.
For over four decades, the company has participated in many technological milestones, including the Artemis I mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, and multiple Mars rover missions. Wind River has also played a part in monumental 5G achievements, including the world’s first successful 5G data session and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world.
The company also offers a diverse range of products and services to industries. As an example, Communications Service Providers in Canada, the US, and around the globe are using Wind River’s Studio Operator platform to host virtualized network functions as part of its next-generation 5G solutions.
Designed specifically for safety-critical applications, the Helix Virtualization Platform is another flagship product of Wind River. This technology serves hyper-sensitive industries such as aerospace and defence, automotive, medical, and industrial sectors.
Why Ottawa?
Wind River considers Ottawa as one of the key strategic locations and a significant driver of its successes in the telecommunications industry. As a technical hub of its Studio Operator product, Wind River’s technology team leads innovation in the 5G and intelligent edge market by developing critical capabilities.
“Wind River has a leadership position in various industry ecosystem groups, such as the O-RAN alliance, which uses the Operator platform as the reference architecture for the virtual edge platform. With the availability of local talent in the cloud space, Ottawa will continue to be an important part of Wind River’s strategy to remain the market leader in these industries”, says a company spokesperson.
In addition to its local presence in Ottawa, team members often fly to Ottawa for face-to-face technology collaboration and planning the next big new release or product.
For nearly two decades, Wind River’s Ottawa team has helped lead the company’s open-source and Linux R&D efforts. Recently, the Ottawa Linux R&D team played a lead role in developing and launching its new eLxr Pro Linux offering.
To this date, the company’s Ottawa Linux team continues to take the lead, not only with its contributions to market-leading products, but also in designing R&D best practices which are opening the door for the company to tap into the diversity of talent available in Ottawa.
Growing in Ottawa
Ottawa is a leading hub of cloud technology which also positioned the city as a dominating hub for cloud tech talent. With a robust pool of cloud computing, software engineering, and data science talent, Canada’s capital became the perfect place for Wind River to grow.
Ottawa’s growth in digital transformation and cloud adoption has led to an increased demand for cloud architects, engineers, and cybersecurity professionals, which aligns well with Wind River’s talent needs, enabling it to consistently find candidates with the right technical skills and experience to support its growth.
Wind River’s presence in Ottawa is strongly influenced by the city’s accessible and deep talent pool, which supports the company’s need for skilled professionals. Additionally, Ottawa’s thriving tech ecosystem, with its academic institutions and collaborative innovation culture, aligns with our R&D and growth objectives.
Wind River being recognized as a 2024 Best Workplaces in Canada award recipient has been a powerful boost to the company’s local recruitment efforts, giving us a competitive edge in attracting top talent in the face of fierce competition from other tech companies in the region. Currently, the company has 200+ employees in its Ottawa location.
Plans for the Future
Wind River’s objectives in Ottawa include solidifying its presence as a leader in delivering software for the intelligent edge, particularly in mission-critical industries like automotive, aerospace, defence, industrial, and telecommunications. With Ottawa’s strong tech talent pool and recognition as a technology hub, the company aims to continue leveraging local expertise to drive innovation in real-time operating systems, intelligent edge, and cloud-native platforms.
Wind River’s leadership feels that Ottawa has the potential to help the company realize its future plans by expanding research and development in areas such as AI, IoT, and edge computing. The company sees significant growth potential as industries continue to adopt edge-to-cloud architectures for handling complex, data-intensive applications., which presents opportunities for Wind River to offer enhanced solutions across industries.
The company asserts that Ottawa is a vital component of Wind River’s strategy, acting as a key innovation hub for its R&D efforts. The city’s strong IT ecosystem and deep presence in the technical talent market will continue to play a major role in accelerating Wind River’s ability to deliver innovative solutions globally.
As the virtualized edge continues to grow and create new opportunities and use cases, Wind River will continue to lead the way in defining solutions and delivering products to enable the industry to evolve and grow.
Invest Ottawa will keep supporting Wind River to achieve its innovation, growth, and business goals.
Interested in Expanding to Ottawa?
If you are planning to expand your business, Ottawa is a great destination. Ottawa has the highest concentration of tech talent in North America (CBRE, 2024), and the city is ranked the second lowest among the top North American cities in the Mercer 2024 Cost of Living City Ranking.
Invest Ottawa’s Global Expansion team will help you with every step of your expansion project, provide you with necessary recommendations, and connect your business with resources in Ottawa.
If you want to learn more about Ottawa’s business ecosystem and how we can help relocate your business to Ottawa, reach out to our team here.
