Fujitsu bows out of desktop hard drive fight

We had money on Samsung/Western Digital

By Robert Blincoe • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 2nd August 2001 14:44 GMT

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Fujitsu is ditching the desktop hard disk market to concentrate on the notebook and server sectors where it believes it can make more money.

The company will quit making desktop hard drives later this year.

Mike Chenery, VP of Fujitsu Computer Products of America, acknowledged things had been difficult because of low margins, the markets' slow growth, and because Fujitsu hadn't been one of the first players competing in the sector.

Fujitsu's competitors are IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, and Samsung in the desktop drive market. Interestingly, back in May, Paul Griffin, IBM's EMEA VP for its Technology Group, predicted it would be Samsung and Western Digital which would bow out of the sector first.

He felt Fujitsu had deep enough pockets and technology ownership to last out the margin fight.

Fujitsu had lost market share in the first half of 2001, and was in fifth place with to nine per cent. ®