$18 billion deal for Toshiba's memory division further challenged by Western Digital
Extending the saga even further, Western Digital has notified Toshiba's board of directors that it formally opposes Toshiba's sale of its memory division to any group that has ties to its primary competitor SK Hynix -- and the favored consortium is relying on funding from it.
In a June 25 letter to Toshiba's board of directors, Western Digital filed its opposition, saying that SK Hynix's funding of the deal will result in "leakage" of Western Digital's core technologies to the rival.
"I must make it clear that Western Digital will not consent to a transaction with the proposed consortium," wrote CEO Stephen Milligan. "This potential course of action would make further litigation inevitable."
Toshiba and SK Hynix make strange bedfellows. Toshiba sued SK Hynix over the suspected theft of intellectual property related to flash storage. The claims was settled out of court, and ended up in SK Hynix doling out $278 million in December 2014.
SK Hynix declined comment on the matter to Reuters. The group is contributing to the deal as it sees business opportunities.
Late Friday, Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa said that the company was "open" to further talks with Western Digital -- but Toshiba would not make the first move.
A U.S. court ruling on an injunction on the sale is expected on July 14. Toshiba's annual shareholder meeting is June 28.
On June 21, Toshiba chose a consortium formed by Bain Capital, Mitsubishi, Japanese government investors with funding from SK Hynix as the preferred bidder for its memory chip business with a bid of over $17.9 billion. However, the preference has apparently only resulted in a temporary exclusivity, and Foxconn still has a chance to prevail, according to CEO Terry Gou.
Toshiba's memory unit is up for sale in an attempt to cover billions in losses from its bankrupt U.S. nuclear division, Westinghouse. The Westinghouse situation in the U.S. is attributed to a declining political appetite for nuclear power, fewer maintenance demands as a result of power plants destined for closure and a shrinking Navy fleet, plus management failures.
While other bidders were offering higher sums, the Bain/Japan consortium has implicit support from the government. Governmental support in theory will speed up the sale process, and somewhat mitigate concerns about critical technology leaking out of country.
Foxconn chairman Terry Gou confirmed Apple and Dell's participation earlier in June. Kingston was also cited as a consortium partner -- Amazon, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft, meanwhile, were cited as potential backers.
In a June 25 letter to Toshiba's board of directors, Western Digital filed its opposition, saying that SK Hynix's funding of the deal will result in "leakage" of Western Digital's core technologies to the rival.
"I must make it clear that Western Digital will not consent to a transaction with the proposed consortium," wrote CEO Stephen Milligan. "This potential course of action would make further litigation inevitable."
Toshiba and SK Hynix make strange bedfellows. Toshiba sued SK Hynix over the suspected theft of intellectual property related to flash storage. The claims was settled out of court, and ended up in SK Hynix doling out $278 million in December 2014.
SK Hynix declined comment on the matter to Reuters. The group is contributing to the deal as it sees business opportunities.
Late Friday, Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa said that the company was "open" to further talks with Western Digital -- but Toshiba would not make the first move.
A U.S. court ruling on an injunction on the sale is expected on July 14. Toshiba's annual shareholder meeting is June 28.
On June 21, Toshiba chose a consortium formed by Bain Capital, Mitsubishi, Japanese government investors with funding from SK Hynix as the preferred bidder for its memory chip business with a bid of over $17.9 billion. However, the preference has apparently only resulted in a temporary exclusivity, and Foxconn still has a chance to prevail, according to CEO Terry Gou.
Toshiba's memory unit is up for sale in an attempt to cover billions in losses from its bankrupt U.S. nuclear division, Westinghouse. The Westinghouse situation in the U.S. is attributed to a declining political appetite for nuclear power, fewer maintenance demands as a result of power plants destined for closure and a shrinking Navy fleet, plus management failures.
While other bidders were offering higher sums, the Bain/Japan consortium has implicit support from the government. Governmental support in theory will speed up the sale process, and somewhat mitigate concerns about critical technology leaking out of country.
Foxconn chairman Terry Gou confirmed Apple and Dell's participation earlier in June. Kingston was also cited as a consortium partner -- Amazon, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft, meanwhile, were cited as potential backers.
Comments
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089464/three-year-27-000-drive-study-reveals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html
In other words, by doing that, you increased the chance of your HDDs failing, from 5.2% to 26.5%, which is more than 5 times the difference.
This is a subject I have lots of experience with from Work experience stand point and we had 10s of million drive deployed,
First this company who was doing the backup of data and such using consumer grade products deserve what they got. I would agree in a consumer grade product WD is a better product. However, once you leave this realm, and get into high performance drives, Seagate is a far better product. Part of the reason why consumers view of Seagate is not good is the fact Seagate test and waterfalls their product keeping the best for their OEM customers and anything which does not meet OEM quality is sold into distribution which ends up and all kinds of cheaper products.
This is just an example of you only get what you pay for, it is not unusual to have a HDD with a 0.5% or less failure rates which is far better than what that study saw. If you want the best quality you have to pay for it, otherwise, you get the luck of the draw. I personal have multiply enterprise class Seagate drive in my home and they are all been running for yrs the longest 8 yrs. I also had WD and both my MyBooks from WD had issues. I also have Toshiba 2.5 drives I use as backups to desktops and laptops and those too have performed very well. But I did not go out and try and find the cheapest drives out there.
Actually I would tell you the Seagate drives in a Apple or HP product sold to consumer is still far better than what you would find just buy anyone's drive on the open market. You are the one who sighted a study done by some company who provides backup services and you would expect they would be using a better class of drives than various drive they located god knows where. They placing a drive into a service environment which they were never intended to be in and expected them to preform well. You do not need to buy "enterprise" grade drive to get better performance then what you call 'consumer" grade. The "consumer" grade drive in the article was placed into a 24/7 environment thus the reason the crapped out as such a high failure rate. All the supplier sell a 24/7 drive and those do much better even if they not enterprise level.
If you are talking about backing up data, why would you trust that to any drive out on the market. Spend a little more money and get better grade of drive one not designed to be a replacement drive to the EOM products. My drive at home for back up especially my NAS are running 24/7 and I made sure they are the better grade of drives without getting into the 15K RPM high Rel drives from Seagate or Hitachi. Seagate makes a drive they call Nearline, they are high capacity, high Rel, if you are going to back up this should be your choice.
"If you are talking about backing up data, why would you trust that to any drive out on the market. Spend a little more money and get better grade"
Which indicates that WD would be a better choice, since it performed well even in the condition is was never meant/designed for.