The news that Western Digital had bought Hitachi Global Storage in a $4.3b deal illustrates just how Things have Changed. Just a few years ago hard discs were a hot sector. Indeed, 10 years ago there were 86 hard disc manufacturers. Since then, consolidation has been rife. Indeed Hitachi bought IBM’s hard drive unit in 2002. Toshiba and Fujitsu merged their operations in 2009. How there are perhaps just half a dozen global manufacturers with Seagate being the #2 now.
If you had asked me only three years ago, I could not have imagined a tech world without hard drives. Now all the new devices – like the iPod, iPhone and iPad - are solid state and their capacity (and resulting cost) has made them mainstream. Low energy consumption and immediate startup are now essentials. As laptops and netbooks (the major users of hard drives) are made redundant, the future for the hard drive manufacturers in the consumer sector looks pretty bleak. That just leaves big storage for big corporations.
Things really have changed.