Commercial, Military

Thales to Acquire Sysgo AG

By Tish Drake | November 15, 2012
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Thales on Thursday said it will pay an undisclosed sum to acquire Sysgo AG, the German supplier of operating system products, middleware, and software services for the real-time and embedded market.

Thales said the acquisition will strengthen its leadership in embedded computing solutions for mission-critical applications. At the same time, it will bring Sysgo access to the market for Thales solutions, consolidating the company’s position as Europe’s leading provider of safe and secure operating systems while supporting its capacity to expand into new markets such as automotive.

Luc Vigneron, chairman and CEO of Thales, called the acquisition “an excellent opportunity to bring on board dynamic teams of experts in advanced software technologies. This will accelerate the development of the next generation of operating systems, particularly for avionics applications. All of our markets will benefit from the key competencies of Sysgo, as the Group addresses growing safety and security requirements with new generations of multi-core processors.”

Sysgo, which employs 80 people in Germany, France and the Czech Republic, will be a subsidiary of Thales, with its headquarters in Klein-Winternheim, near Frankfurt, Germany. Sysgo customers include Airbus, EADS, Raytheon, Rockwell-Collins and Rohde & Schwarz.

In a joint statement, the Executive Team of Sysgo, Michael Tiedemann and Knut Degen, said they were delighted to see the company being backed up by “an organisation with the breadth and calibre of Thales. This step boosts Sysgo’s technological and commercial development both within Thales and with our long-standing customer base in the open market. So all of us at Sysgo are very excited about the future development plan proposed by Thales, which is providing us with the ability, but also the freedom to promote the PikeOS operating system globally in all market segments.”

This is the second acquisition for Thales this month. Two weeks ago, Thales signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) and motion tracking businesses from Gentex Corp., based in Carbondale, Pa. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. More

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