Western Digital has agreed to purchase Sandisk for $19 billion in cash and stock, a deal which values Sandisk at $86.50 per share and represents a 12% premium over yesterday’s closing price. Current Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan will remain in charge of the company, which retains its headquarters in Irvine, California, while SanDisk’s CEO Sanjay Mehrotra is expected to remain with Western Digital and join their board of directors.
Sandisk had reportedly been looking for a buyer, with Micron the other likely candidate according to this morning’s report from The Wall Street Journal. The move should help to better position Western Digital in the SSD space, something rival Seagate appeared to be focused on when purchasing LSI last year. Neither company has any significant presence in the consumer solid-state market dominated by Samsung, and it will be interesting to see where WD goes with the Sandisk brand.
I haven’t noticed any quality
I haven’t noticed any quality issues with the transition of Hitachi HDDs to HGST HDDs under WD’s ownership, so I assume SanDisk will be just fine.
Not only SSDs. Sandisk is
Not only SSDs. Sandisk is also a top consumer and professional memory card manufacturer. This deal puts WD in a much broader market.
The article’s title should be
The article’s title should be changed to “bought”, since it’s done.
No it isn’t.
No it isn’t.
They BOUGHT them already. It
They BOUGHT them already. It was done. How is that “isn’t”?
http://www.kitguru.net/compon
http://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/matthew-wilson/western-digital-is-buying-sandisk-for-19-billion/
“While the deal is announced, it still needs to be looked at by several official parties before going ahead, including the FTC since both companies have Headquarters in California, the trade commission will judge whether or not the deal is anti-competitive.
Right now, Western Digital expects the acquisition to complete by the third quarter of next year.”
They AGREED to buy them. The deal hasn’t been completed and won’t be for quite some time. That’s how it “isn’t”.
WD’s first SSD will be a
WD’s first SSD will be a rebadged V300 😛
Seriously though what does it say when WD could not come up with their own SSD and had to buy someone else to get into the market?
Welcome to the SSD party WD, it was yesterday.
WD has specialized in
WD has specialized in magnetic storage for a long time and they do a good job with it. I have used some of their SSHDs and the SSD portion is extremely fast. I believe its not that they don’t know how to make an SSD its more that they don’t have the setup to mass produce them.