Toshiba swallows Fujitsu HDD

The new company will be known as Toshiba Storage Devices Corporation and will encompass all of Fujitsu's former HDD assembly plants and R&D across Asia.

Spawning multiple subsidiary Toshiba Storage Device Corporations throughout Asia, Toshiba will take over Fujitsu's Filipino and Thai operations, and swell its ranks with 7,800 ex-Fujitsu employees.

Global Fujitsu HDD operations will be channelled through Toshiba's Overseas unit from that point on.

Fujitsu has also taken the time to dump its HD media manufacturing business (aluminium and glass substrate plants) to Showa Denko KK (SDK).

The only odd thing about the transaction is that no money changes hands, really. Toshiba and Fujitsu essentially transfer their HDD business operations into a bigger company that will be 80.1 per cent and 19.9 per cent owned by Toshiba and Fujitsu, respectively.

That company will be operated by Toshiba, but it will also take a US$60 million hit from previous (Fujitsu) operating losses.

No matter that margins are dropping like flies and SSDs are encroaching on HDD territory, Toshiba seems adamant it's a winning bet.

The latest IDC research says the new HDD business unit will account for about 16 per cent of the entire HDD business - a shoulder-to-shoulder share with Hitachi, but still far behind the 31.6 per cent Seagate and 26.9 per cent WD shares.

The deal has also triggered a spiral of moves at Fujitsu starting with a round of musical chairs up and down the hierarchy, but we've gone cross-eyed trying to figure out who exactly got what.

What we do know is that Fujitsu will continue to refocus on its PC, Notebook and Server core businesses throughout 2009.