Fujitsu To Discontinue HDD Head Business
While many may gloss over this discontinuation while focusing on the
plethora of other pullouts in the industry, this one's pretty
significant in the world of hard disk drives. Fujitsu, a long time
player in the HDD head business, has recently decided that it would be
best if it let its rivals forge ahead without it jockeying for
position. Effective March 31, 2009, said outfit will be axing its hard
disk drive head business as part of a "broader strategic review of the
HDD operations."
Currently, Fujitsu's HDD head development and manufacturing operations are performed at the Nagano Plant in Japan, and at least officially, the company is planning to reassign all 360 affected plant employees to undisclosed "other operations within the Fujitsu Group." This factory also cranks out printed circuit boards for servers and telecommunications equipment, and both of those initiatives will continue even after March 31st.
The discontinuation of the HDD head business will certainly have a
financial impact, as the outfit will be forced to recognize a one-time,
facilities-related loss of ¥5 billion ($54.85 million) in its
consolidated financial statements for the third quarter of fiscal 2008
ended December 31, 2008.
Currently, Fujitsu's HDD head development and manufacturing operations are performed at the Nagano Plant in Japan, and at least officially, the company is planning to reassign all 360 affected plant employees to undisclosed "other operations within the Fujitsu Group." This factory also cranks out printed circuit boards for servers and telecommunications equipment, and both of those initiatives will continue even after March 31st.
The discontinuation of the HDD head business will certainly have a
financial impact, as the outfit will be forced to recognize a one-time,
facilities-related loss of ¥5 billion ($54.85 million) in its
consolidated financial statements for the third quarter of fiscal 2008
ended December 31, 2008.
