This article is more than 1 year old

WD buys Fujitsu desktop HDD ops

Bulking up

Western Digital is buying up some of Fujitsu hard drive ops. It is taking on 1,100 Fujitsu employees based in Thailand and some of the production facilities. Terms are otherwise undisclosed, but considering the commitments, WD is taking on, the price will be low, low, low.

In August, Fujitsu announced its intention to withdraw from desktop HDDs, while concentrating on the mobile and high-end segments. So under the circumstances, a deal with Western Digital was probably the best that could hoped for, certainly for the Thai employees

Western Digital withdrew from the enterprise HDD market last year. It has long been thought of as the weakest of the big hard drive manufacturers, lacking the financial weight and sheer bulk of Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung and IBM.

But it reported a good set of results yesterday, and its decision to buy out Fujitsu, for presumably that knockdown price, shows energy and confidence. Or madness. It'll take a year or so to see which way this cookie crumbles. ®

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