Atego, the leading independent supplier of industrial-grade, modeling and development tools for complex, mission and safety-critical embedded systems and software has acquired Blue River Software GmbH, extending its embedded development software portfolio to now include C++ tools. Atego’s acquisition of Blue River closely follows its creation from the recent merger between Artisan Software Tools and Aonix. The acquisition also demonstrates Atego’s effectiveness at delivering on its growth strategyas a platform for market consolidation.
“The Blue River acquisition continues our ‘complex systems tools market’ consolidation program,” said James B. Gambrell, Executive Chairman of Atego. “Blue River’s offerings, vertical markets and German reach complement our existing organization and expand our capabilities across our entire organization. The real benefit of our joining together with Blue River is not just the technology and products it gives us, but that by combining our offerings, our customers are better able to Work as One. As we continue to grow and expand, we are committed to remaining independent-minded and flexible, positioning us particularly well to serve the growing needs of our engineering customers.”
Blue River was founded in 1993 as a supplier of software tools for embedded C++ system development, deriving the bulk of its business in the German automotive, engineering automation, telecommunication and measurement/control industries. The acquisition will significantly expand Atego’s German customer base. All of the Blue River team will join Atego, extending Atego’s knowledge and capability within the embedded C++ industry. Blue River will work with Atego’s German headquarters in Wolfsburg, while retaining its regional offices in Nürnberg.
“I am extremely excited that Blue River has joined with Atego,” commented Thomas Groß, CEO of Blue River Software GmbH. “Atego is a highly successful and fast-growing company with an enviable reputation for providing robust design and development tools for complex systems development. Blue River will add C++ development tools to the solutions and services Atego is able to offer to its customers as well as expand its market share in Germany and beyond.”
“We are pleased to see Atego acquire Blue River and commit to the ongoing enhancement of its products,” said Reinhard Gessler, R&D Manager of E.P. Elektro Projekt GmbH & CO.KG, Germany. “As a long term Blue River customer, we have already been impressed by Atego’s professionalism and service quality. This move could only be made possible by the dedication and skill of the Atego and Blue River teams.”
The acquisition combines Blue River’s operating business including all products and underlying intellectual property, professional services and expertise with Atego’s existing German operations. The product portfolio includes the E32, X32 family and DOCU32 development tools for C/C++. As well as C/C++, the Blue River tools also support C#, JAVA, PASCAL, PL/M and ASSEMBLER development and integrate with all major compilers, including Atego’s Aonix PERC.
“Combining Blue River with Atego is another significant step in our ‘whole product’ growth strategy. Their tools complement our solutions for mission, safety and life-critical complex systems development, adding all-important C++ capabilities to the Atego portfolio,” said Hedley Apperly, VP Product & Marketing at Atego. “This acquisition gives us broad coverage across our customer’s three most important embedded system programming languages; Ada (robust and reliable), C/C++ (current market leading language of choice) and Java (the future for real-time software development). It is also further evidence of our strategy to remain independent-minded and support our customers’ choices of best-of-breed languages and tools.