Western Digital's Hitachi Storage Takeover Approved With Restrictions 156
angry tapir writes "Western Digital's plan to buy Hitachi Global Storage has run into U.S. FTC resistance: The U.S. FTC will require Western Digital to sell off assets used to manufacture desktop hard drives to a competitor as a condition of its U.S.$4.5 billion acquisition of rival Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, the agency has announced."
It looks like Toshiba is the competitor receiving the manufacturing assets.
More from the FTC: "Under the proposed settlement order, Toshiba will receive all of the productive assets needed to replicate Hitachi Global Storage Technologies' position in the desktop hard disk drive market. In addition, the settlement order requires Western Digital to provide Toshiba with access to its employees involved in research and development and the production of desktop hard disk drives, and also requires Western Digital to license all intellectual property needed to make and supply desktop hard disk drives to Toshiba. The settlement order also requires Western Digital to be available to supply Toshiba with certain components Toshiba will need to run the desktop hard disk drive business it acquires, and to contract manufacture hard disk drives for Toshiba until Toshiba is able to manufacture them on its own. The FTC also has appointed a monitor to oversee the sale of the assets to Toshiba and to keep the Commission informed about the status of the required divestiture."
Re:No good hard drives left (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FTC? (Score:4, Informative)
Because it isn't a single company controlling all the channels.
And they aren't giving it away fro free. They are selling it for 4.5 billion.
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Re:FTC? (Score:5, Informative)
I know the summary is confusing (as usual), but read it slowly before complaining:
WD wants to buy Hitachi Global Storage.
Hitachi Global Storage manufactures desktop drives that compete with WD.
The FTC requires WD to sell off the parts of *Hitachi* that make desktop drives to a competitor (Toshiba) before completing the acquisition of Hitachi.
WD does not have to do anything with their existing disk manufacturing business / R&D / whatever.
Re:Somehow this makes the sale fair? (Score:4, Informative)
Its called globalization. Its the future.
Judging by previous futures, it's overrated...
I was going to say the future is overrated based on past results,
but that keeps getting flagged as a parser error in module neocortex.
Re:Hitachi (IBM) Deathstars (Score:4, Informative)
My personal favorite is when you're trying to RMA the hard drive, and the person on the other end has you run a bunch of diagnostics that say the drive is fine.
It's like, come on guys, I am a tech, my case has its side off more often than on, I've spent a fair amount of my life tending to the needs and wants to a number of machines that have found their way to me...I know what the usual sounds those hard drives are supposed to make, having been running them for over a year, and one of them has suddenly started making scratching noises. Your diagnostics will be giving me a green light right while the drive drops / corrupts data and disappears randomly from the OS's view, right up until the day it's suddenly no longer detected. Even Windows will think something is wrong with the drive before your diagnostic program will.
I had to run the m*therf*cking acoustic test on one of Seagate's (or was it Maxtor's) drive before it would give me a code to send the thing in. Show of hands from the people who know how long it takes to run that test, with the machine unusable while you're running it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)