back to article Chinese admirer fancies WD's 3.5-inch hardness - insider

Could China become a major hard disk manufacturing base if Great Wall snaps up a slice of Western Digital's 3.5-inch drive business? WD is trying to buy Hitachi GST, but EU and Chinese regulators said the sale would limit competition in the HDD market - unless WD sells off some of its 3.5-inch disk fab capacity in amelioration …

COMMENTS

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  1. Sureo
    Flame

    want SSD

    Price of SSDs are coming down. Quite frankly I wish I never have to use another conventional hard drive again.

    1. Daniel 4

      Hybrid storage for the win!

      SSD rocks, but I'm going to be using conventional drives for a while yet. Of course, a combination of a half dozen conventional drives and an SSD in a zfs pool usually do just as well as a pure SSD storage array, and gives a lot more space for your buck. :)

      -d

  2. Graham Wilson
    Flame

    Monopoly! We certainly don't need a repeat performance.

    Irrespective of how these mergers turn out, the narrowing of the storage/HD market should be viewed with considerable concern.

    We've already seen what kind of a monster was created as a result of a monopoly in the operating system market. We certainly don't need a repeat performance.

  3. Chris_Maresca
    FAIL

    Great - Europeans create another Chinese competitor

    So, for the sake of regulation, the Europeans are going to force the creation of a viable Chinese competitor in a market dominated by Western companies?

    That's just great, thanks so much for protecting our interests....

    1. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

      No, not the Europeans

      "Chinese regulators said the sale would limit competition in the HDD market - unless WD sells off some of its 3.5-inch disk fab capacity in amelioration"

      Definition of AMELIORATE: transitive verb: to make better or more tolerable

      To make better for whom????? China? All so some PHB can get his/her bonus by selling more product in China, what could possibly go wong (no it's not a typo).

      1. simplifried

        The article mistakingly reports that China regulators are requiring a divestiture of 3.5 inch technology in order to clear WDC' s acquisition of Hitachi GST. That is not the case, it was the Euro regulators that stipulated the divestiture.

    2. Dan Paul
      Mushroom

      When Regulations (and those who write them) need to be changed....Just like Diapers

      Chris,

      You hit the nail on the head, we need to offshore the jobs (directly to HELL) of the regulators that want to create even MORE Chinese competitors and ruin more good paying "middle class" jobs. Even a painful death is not enough punishment for these "regulators".

      How about we go the other way for at least 20 years.

      If a Chinese/Indian/Korean/Taiwan/Vietnamese/Etc manufacturer want to sell it's product in a Western Country, then they must have 51% of the manufacturing (by Weight) performed in that country (at local median wages & benefits) or pay a permanent tax that will pay 150% of the unemployment benefits for the people who lost their jobs due to outsourcing of the manufacturing jobs.

      1. Tonik
        Joke

        that is exactly the point...

        we need more taxes and duties and unemployment benefits, so average imported laptop costs 2000 euro in EU and 400 outside. That will solve it all. Normal people dont need computers anyway. And if they want some they can always buy it on black market. Why buying in shop with garantee and all if you can get it of van in parking lot. Everybody will be better off.

        (see icon)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fancies WD's 3.5-inch hardness - insider

    Oh! I see what you did right there.

  5. Robert E A Harvey
    Paris Hilton

    eh?

    China has competition commissioners? In a communist coiuntry?

    The world is too weird for me!

    1. Jonathan Samuels

      China is the most capitalistic country in the world none of this union and worker rights malarky. Complain and you get shot

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Minimum Wage

    Why not require all imported goods to have paid their employees a minimum of 75% of the national minimum wage? Even 25% would probably prevent a lot of 'slave labor' goods from entering the market.

  7. mhenriday
    Boffin

    I think most of us realise that it would be to our benefit as consumers

    to see another major player emerge in the extremely oligopolistic HDD market. But of course, to those who allow their dislike of China to override every other concern - and who ignore such facts that (essential components for) most HDDs are presently made in that bastion of freedom and democracy, not to say equitable labour relations, Thailand (which is one of the reasons that the floods in that country had such an effect on prices), rather than in, say, our lovely and o-so-democratic Europe - this is really bad news....

    Henri

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