Posted by John McHale
SAN JOSE, Calif., 3 May 2011. Officials at Atego in San Diego announced that the company has acquired embedded avionics software and hardware engineering services provider HighRely in Phoenix. HighRely owns a large Avionics Certification Center and fields many DO-178B and DO-254 designated engineering representatives (DERs) and avionics engineers throughout the industry. 

Under the terms of the agreement with HighRely, Atego is acquiring the company and all its assets, including service offerings, products, and intellectual property. The acquisition will see all of HighRely's employees, Phoenix headquarters and Avionics Certification Center, ongoing customer commitments and partner relationships integrated into Atego's global business operations.
"The acquisition of HighRely is all about scale, growth and continuing to deliver on our Work-as-One  strategy to enable engineers to easily meet the difficult challenges involved in designing complex, critical systems," says James B. Gambrell, chairman of Atego.  "HighRely's expertise in the aerospace and avionics markets adds considerable breadth and depth to our solutions and services for critical system design and development, reinforcing our position in the market and boosting our potential for growth. The unparalleled industry knowledge, expertise and ongoing commitment of HighRely's employees will also add significantly to our global expansion plans. This acquisition is key for Atego and we plan to invest in the growth of the HighRely business, while continuing to service HighRely's loyal customers."
"Atego has an enviable reputation for providing robust products and services for complex, critical system, and software development," says Vance Hilderman, president of HighRely. "Our tools and services are the perfect complement to Atego's highly successful, market-leading solutions portfolio and our skill-base will provide added impetus for growth in Atego's key market segments."
HighRely provides engineering services and software solutions for critical systems design and development, covering the whole project lifecycle from application planning, specification and design through to build, testing, verification, certification, and implementation. Atego supplies industrial-grade, collaborative development tools for engineering complex, mission- and safety-critical architectures, systems, software and hardware.
"Together, we are stronger," says Hedley Apperly, Atego's vice-president of product and marketing. "The acquisition of HighRely significantly extends our footprint in the market, particularly in the USA. Atego's strong presence and reputation in Europe will also leverage HighRely's skills to grow local expertise for new, break-through safety-critical projects with customers in Europe. It considerably reinforces our capabilities in the aerospace and avionics market as well as expanding our presence in the transportation, medical equipment, and nuclear industries. We are now able to offer customers proven, and market-leading, DO-178B, and DO-254 avionics certification and training services, under the AtegoHighRely brand. We will also fold the HighRelyCheck and HighRelyTrace tools into Atego's product portfolio."