China's Tsinghua to buy Western Digital stake in U.S. tech push

[mxnerd]

China's state-backed Tsinghua Holdings plans to buy a 15 percent stake in U.S. data storage company Western Digital, a deal that could draw regulatory scrutiny amid increased national security concerns.

Tsinghua-owned Unisplendour will invest $3.78 billion in Western Digital to boost its technology portfolio and get the right to nominate one representative to the U.S. company's board, the companies said on Wednesday.

Unisplendour will buy newly issued Western Digital shares at $92.50 each, a premium of about 33 percent to the stock's Tuesday close.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/30/nati...uy-western-digital-stake-in-us-tech-push.html

 

[Mondozei]

So they have probably given up on Micron. My guess is that the long term game here is to hope that WD finally understands the inevitable: the era of the HDD is coming to an end, and that they must move towards SSDs and all the tech associated with that.

So basically the objective stays the same, only with a longer time horizon.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Well 15% is a minority interest so they won't be able to steer the company. I don't know what assets they have but if they can provide WD with solid state manufacturing capacity it would assist them with the transition to ssd's. Personally I am planning to use hd's only as a long term storage medium outside of my pc's so when I build my next system I expect for it to house only ssd's.

 

[BFG10K]

My guess is that the long term game here is to hope that WD finally understands the inevitable: the era of the HDD is coming to an end, and that they must move towards SSDs and all the tech associated with that.

Yeah, just like tape drives. Oh wait, that never happened. Just like it'll never happen for HDDs.

 

[Phynaz]

Yeah, just like tape drives. Oh wait, that never happened. Just like it'll never happen for HDDs.

Tape drives are quikly disapeering from data centers. Most commercial hosting operations don't use tape anymore.