Last week at the Intel 2022 Investor Meeting, company leaders reiterated our commitment to foster an open ecosystem that ensures trust, choice and interoperability for our industry. Today, in a furtherance of that commitment, we are excited to announce Intel’s acquisition of Linutronix.
Linutronix is comprised of a team of highly qualified and motivated employees with a wealth of experience and involvement in the ongoing development of Linux. Led by CEO Heinz Egger and CTO Thomas Gleixner, Linutronix is the architect of PREEMPT_RT (Real Time) and the leading technology provider for industrial Linux. Gleixner has been the principal maintainer of x86 architecture in the Linux kernel since 2008.
This acquisition reflects Intel’s commitment to supporting the Linux kernel and the Linux community more broadly.
Software is a growth sector for Intel, and we believe a successful software ecosystem needs to be open to thrive. Being open is the foundation upon which we can enable choice for our partners and foster trust. Linutronix shares this belief and Intel’s deep commitment to advancing the Linux open source ecosystem.
By acquiring Linutronix, we are deepening our long-standing relationship with a highly respected team of globally recognized Linux experts, adding to the remarkable breadth and depth of Intel’s hardware and software talent. Linutronix will continue to operate as an independent business within our software division, led by Egger and Gleixner.
I look forward to working together with the entire Linutronix team to unlock the opportunities in front of us as we pursue our common vision of a strong open ecosystem built on Linux.
Mark Skarpness is vice president and general manager of System Software Engineering in the Software and Advanced Technology Group at Intel Corporation.
Mark Skarpness is vice president and general manager of the System Software Engineering team within the Software and Advanced Technology Group at Intel. Skarpness and team are responsible for operating systems and core drivers, virtualization, orchestration, cloud native, web platform, and related system software for Intel platforms.
Skarpness joined Intel in 1993 as a software engineer working on broadband networking and has spent more than two decades working in system software. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.