The European Commission will, under certain conditions, approved the acquisition of Hitachi’s hdd-part by Western Digital. One of the conditions is that Western Digital’s manufacturing facilities for 3.5″drives sell.
The European Commission mentions, the problem is that the Western Digital, after the acquisition on the market for 3.5″disks only competition from Seagate, which Samsung’s hdd branch has taken over. Toshiba is according to the Commission, is still a young player, to have a real competition to offer. The EC provides for, among other problems, because customers in this market, products would decline from more than one manufacturer, to be sure of deliveries.
Western Digital has introduced to production facilities for the 3.5″hdd’s of the hand to do, including a factory. The manufacturer will intellectual property rights transfer to the company the production facilities takes over, and staff, and componententoeleveringen they also go to that party. If the hardeschijffabrikant to comply with these conditions, the Commission sees no significant impact on competition in the European market. For the market for external drives, notebookdrives and other product categories, the Commission provides absolutely no problems.
At the end of april, Western Digital announced Hitachi Global Storage Technology to want to take over, which is a subsidiary of Hitachi, which recently under the name of Viviti Technologies goes through life. On 18 August, the European Commission his objections known to Western Digital. On 19 October, Europe agreed with the acquisition of Samsung by Seagate.