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Why in the world are hard drives made in Malaysia?

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desura

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Or Thailand? These are tropical climates so it seems it would make maintaining clean rooms much tougher. The high tech nature of the work makes low cost of labor less important. Wouldn't it make more sense to locate these facilities in cold and dry regions like Canada?
 
Phynaz said:
Actually it doesn't. R&D can happen anywhere in the world. Do you think Canadians are somehow more intelligent than Malaysians?
Click to expand...

Well, I don't believe that WD has any design centers in Malaysia, just production lines.

Does Malaysia have any universities?
 
desura said:
Or Thailand? These are tropical climates so it seems it would make maintaining clean rooms much tougher. The high tech nature of the work makes low cost of labor less important. Wouldn't it make more sense to locate these facilities in cold and dry regions like Canada?
Click to expand...

I don't think maintaining a clean room is any more of a challenge in Thailand than it is in Texas. If it is any more expensive to have one in Thailand, surely, the cost of doing business in Canada is worlds more expensive. The same reason you run a freezer to sell ice cream at the beach instead of on the ski slope.
 
Sadly companies don't really care about quality, they only care about keeping costs as low as possible.

I wish we had more industry in Canada but it's never going to happen and stuff like the TPP is only going to put more nails in that coffin.
 
Phynaz said:
Actually it doesn't. R&D can happen anywhere in the world. Do you think Canadians are somehow more intelligent than Malaysians?
Click to expand...

I can't say about Malaysians but there are differences between races and one of them includes intelligence and other ones are for example sports like long distance running in which winners tend to come from same countries / region Ethiopia being an example. That's not coincidence. It's genetics and the truth and has nothing to do with racism.
 
desura said:
Or Thailand? These are tropical climates so it seems it would make maintaining clean rooms much tougher. The high tech nature of the work makes low cost of labor less important. Wouldn't it make more sense to locate these facilities in cold and dry regions like Canada?
Click to expand...


Labor is far more expensive than all the other things mentioned. If you have 1000 employees and have to pay 5x time the amount to each one on average, it sums up.
 
VirtualLarry said:
Well, I don't believe that WD has any design centers in Malaysia, just production lines.

Does Malaysia have any universities?
Click to expand...

Yes.

It might be hard to understand for an American, but there are actually other places in the world that have electricity, running water and cars.

In fact, their cities look like cleaner, more modern, less decrepit versions of american cities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bukit_bintang_from_kl_monorail_2009.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cmglee_KL_Masjid_Jamek_confluence.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Petronas_Panorama_II.jpg

American city, for comparison:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4f/e9/92/4fe992f7c394fe037e899e48aaa7ea1a.jpg
 
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This thread has degenerated into pointless ethnic insults and is therefore locked.
 
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