History (1998): WD To Use IBM’s Design in Future HDDs

The recent agreement between IBM and Western Digital is a long term initially 3-year relationship that will go far.

Until now, and for the past 2 years, there was an OEM program between the 2 companies, but it concerned magnetic heads. During its March quarter, WD nonetheless bought nearly half its MR heads from IBM.

Not only is the new agreement reinforced in order to apply to GMR heads, but moreover, WD will integrate IBM technology and designs into its future HDDs.

The very first desktop GMR Caviar model, resulting from the union between the 2 HDD majors should appear in the first half of 1999, and will be different from that projected in WD’s roadmap, particularly where an under $100 drive is concerned.

When commenting on the agreement, during a conference call, WD’s president CEO and COB, Chuck Haggerty, pulled no punches: “We’re redefIning the industry! (…) We’re changing the playing field big time!“

For him, it was a new business model in the concept integration.

“The beauty of the proposed agreement with IBM is that it enables WD to remain non-vertically integrated in the most capital intensive part of the business, aligned with the industry leader in areal density,” he said.

The agreement doesn’t pertain to any of the firm’s desktop designs in the future, nor does it involve the design of high-end drives.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 125 on June 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.