Wind River develops software for embedded systems powered by ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, x86 and SPARC chip including VxWorks software used in NASA rovers, spacecraft, military computer systems, and industry.

Some of the staff let go have worked there for 25 years, including one guy who was the last developers of the NASA build of VxWorks, and provided support for the real-time operating system on radiation-hardened processors.

Employees who have been at the company the longest, or are among the most senior, have been the hardest hit by this round of redundancies. Intel claimed that staffers were told they were being laid off on a performance basis, but according to the Register  those who worked from home where more likely to be fired. 

Wind River was founded in 1981, and bought by Intel in 2009 for nearly $900m. Last October it was fined $750,000 for exporting encryption to China, Russia, Israel and other countries. A significant security bug was found in VxWorks this month.

The redundancies are somewhat surprising given that the operating system has a role in Intel's Internet-of-Things push.