IBM Spins Down 221
beggs writes "IBM and Hitachi have signed an agreement which will take IBM out of the hard drive market in three years. This press release on IBM's web site gives some details of the deal. 18,000 IBM employees and all their hard drive related patents will join about 6,000 Hitachi employees to form a new company that will be a subsidiary of Hitachi. Sad to see big blue out of the hard drive business, they have made a lot of contributions to computing." We did a story when they announced their plans back in April.
IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:1)
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:2, Insightful)
Cash now, AND cash later
All conjecture, of course... but isn't that what Big Blue is about these days? Research, research and more research?
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:1)
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:1)
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:2)
Not really. IBM is all about services, services, and more services these days. Why fight for a piece of a razor-thin margin on hardware when consulting services are still practically name-your-own-price?
Re:IBM Made $2.05 billion in the deal. (Score:1)
Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
I am still not sure whether globalization is a good thing or not.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing. But that's not a bad thing. All that will happen is 24,000 or so people will be freed up to do something else in our economy. A company like this sounds like it belongs in Asia anyway - America isn't known for cheap duplication of already wide-spread technology. We're more well known for our R&D efforts contributing to the latest in technology. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it - with the speed that our economy is changing, we won't even notice the flux of 24,000 jobs.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2, Informative)
Yup, like suck up unemployment and Social Security money. It's not exactly all that easy to find a tech job once you're over 40.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
It's not exactly all that easy to find a tech job once you're over 40.
Only if you're still developing like you did in your 20s. Times change, if you don't keep up, you get unemployed, no matter how old you are.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, now, don't get me wrong - nobody likes to be laid off. The reason I can deal with it is because I understand the economics of it all - the economy is a delicate thing. Anything man has ever done to hinder the invisible hand of the free market has always backfired. I'd rather be out of a job for a few months in a prosperous country than to have a stable secure job working for the government in a country of distributed poverty. If you give me a hand-out when I'm laid off and make it easier on me, you stifle my innovation and rob the world of the ideas I would think up when it's sink or swim and I've got to swim if I want to feed my kids. One man's temporary discomfort is better to have than the wasted dreams of a nation living well below its potential because it chooses to distribute the weath of those who have earned it to those who have not.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Not all of us drop our ethics/beliefs the instant they become inconvenient. Yeah, yeah, a distinctly 1800's sentiment, I know. We're so much more enlightened in our self-interest in the 2000's.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Yes, those child labor laws and worker safety are pure evil and must be eliminated. They're driving all the unskilled labor to SE Asia!
Yes, I know, an extreme case, but they haven't always backfired. I'm all for lasseiz faire, but there are limits -- Smith's model has its downfalls just like any other model. The invisible hand doesn't work when the company/person committing the act does not shoulder the burdon of cost for that act. This is generally true for child labor, safety, and environmental issues.
Now the laws to deal with these issues can go too far, but to say that any law that hinders the free market is inherently doomed to backfire is a very short sighted view of things.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
You brainwashed ideas about innovation and wealth generation is an important but very limited aspect of a modern economy. If this were true to the degree you suggest, then counties like Japan, Germany, and Denmark would be poor: none of them subscribe to the 'sink or swim' model you describe; even the USA doesn't believe in such a model! If you ever go to these counties you'll see they are doing just fine.
Go read 'The Good Society: The Human Agenda' by John Kenneth Galbraith; probably one of the best known free market economist in the world.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Interesting. Your description of aid that "stifles innovation and robs the world of my ideas" fits the Finnish social security system quite well. Interestingly enough, the World Economic Forum [weforum.org] ranked Finland ahead of the US [weforum.org] in competitiveness last year. Similarily, the IMD [www.imd.ch] ranks Finland this year second [www.imd.ch] in competitiveness (after the US), having moved up one rank each year since at least 1998.
Granted, there is unemployment (long-term unemployment has become a major problem in Finland), but still those studies should show that the idea of an extensive social security system isn't all bad.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
That would explain why the working man has less money than say Bill Gates. You don't earn wealth, you ride others to it. The hardest working people in America (assembly line workers) make the least (minimum wage).
You're not taking one thing into consideration. In order to make money you not only need to work hard, but also you need to work smart. Although an assembly line worker may work hard where you come from, they don't work very smart(ly). Now they don't have to have a high level of eduction, they just have to use their heads and provide a product or service that will get them income to give them the lifestyle that they want.
The system is the way it is to try to lessen the hurt of capitalism.
There are two ways that people are motivated. There is positive motivation and there is negative motivation. What you are describing as "the system" is a way in which the government has taken away one of the primary motivators of men. If there are no consequences to being lazy then we would all be lazy. By "lessening the hurt" of capitalism you are lessening the consequences of being lazy and that is the primary reason that socialist/communist countries can't perform at the level we can.
The system is the way it is to try to lessen the hurt of capitalism. Capitalism isn't about giving money to those who come up with ideas, it's about who promotes their product better. Bill Gates didn't come up with anything original on his part. He ripped off someone else and remarketed it. The idea of capitalism is much better than the reality. The man who made DOS wasn't really rewarded for his efforts.
In the case of Bill Gates and DOS - the inventor of DOS was given the full amount he thought he was worth. Bill Gates, who had more vision, was able to make more with the product. Both Bill Gates and the origional inventor of DOS were happy. The DOS programmer was happy because he made some money off of one of his programs? (he was happy because he obviously thought selling the program was worth the money he was receiving for it) and Bill Gates was happy to use DOS to create a small empire for himself. All men are created equal with the right to be unequal. If I want more I can have more - if you'll settle for less you'll get less. Take McDonnalds - McDonalds is named after the McDonald brothers, but Ray Crock is the gazillionair with the vision because he bought the franchise rights from the McD brothers and created one of the largest businesses in the world. The McDonald brothers would have liked to have the end result that Ray Crock has created but they weren't willing to do the work. They were very happy to sell the rights to ray for 1 million dollars and keep their business. They probably though he was crazy. But the McD brothers never would have made McDonalds into what it is today - they would have continued to put them in front of factories and nowhere else. Ray Crock had the vision that people would eventually eat out as much as they eat in their homes. Again, the McD's where happy with their reward for creating McDonnalds because they didn't have the vision of what it could be. And I'm sure if you ask Ray's family they are happy with their reward.
Usually, some company squeezes the invovation out of it's employees for only 1% of what the product is worth. Look through the BS and find that wealth is inherited or stole, rarely earned. No man is that much greater than another!
In the case of a company who employs someone to invent something and retains the rights they often provide the employee with resources he would never be able to provide himself and therefore he may never have been able to do what he did. Besides he is perfectly happy with the job when he agrees to do it (in America we don't often have people forced into slavery any more - although having a job is close to being a slave) Often the man doesn't believe that he will invent something great - or if he does he doesn't think he'll be able to market it. But he makes the agreement with the company - he isn't forced into anything.
Just some things to think about.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
How many people who believe in the free market don't quite get the actual ramifications of the damn thing?
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
Well I agree with the first part saying Asian is better suited for cheap manufacturing, BUT America is not so hot in the R&D department. Sure we might have some stuff, but I think Europe and Asia are beating America in this too!
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:3, Interesting)
While maybe 24,000 jobs won't be missed (unless one of them is putting food on your table and a roof over your head), but this is only a drop in a river of jobs moving offshore.
I suggest you check out yesterday's WSJ Boomtown column for a little enlightenment, like the paragrapgh that reads:
"Career advice for the 21st century: Stay away from any job that can be done online, or you'll be competing with my buddy Odyssey -- and people eager to underbid him, too. I found a good programmer in five minutes. I'm still looking for a good carpenter."
Want to trade in your mouse for a hammer? Unless you can somehow compete with equally competent coders who charge 1/10th what you do, you're going to be in the same (sinking) boat as the rest of us.
Globalization is rather painful.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
What will stop Hitachi from firing everyone after three years and moving production to cheaper Asia?
Nothing. But that's not a bad thing. All that will happen is 24,000 or so people will be freed up to do something else in our economy. A company like this sounds like it belongs in Asia anyway - America isn't known for cheap duplication of already wide-spread technology. We're more well known for our R&D efforts contributing to the latest in technology. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it - with the speed that our economy is changing, we won't even notice the flux of 24,000 jobs.
And what's more, that will probably mean cheaper hard drives if the manufacturing costs come down. I say go for it. I'm sure IBM will be able to find good use for the money.
-- james
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
I think I hit paste without meaning to. That "if it's not right, you should have previewed it" came back to bite me on the ass I guess
so, apologies
-- james
Dammit! (Score:2, Interesting)
-5 ignorant.
"with the speed that our economy is changing, we won't even notice the flux of 24,000 jobs"
24000 people would beg to differ, I'm sure
"We're more well known for our R&D efforts contributing to the latest in technology."
"We're" best known for our tremendous wealth gap, and our lovable platitude-spouting morons who insist that 24000 people losing their jobs is a good thing, and that those who lose their jobs will "get over it" and "move on" to something better.
Your ignorant, ignominious, Limbaugh-looney bleatings betray the fact that your concept of "human capital" lacks any trace of humanity. Nice flamebait, though.
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:2)
Yeah like flipping burgers
Re:Moving production to Asia? (Score:1)
Maybe? (Score:2)
Re:Maybe? (Score:3, Informative)
Future (Score:1)
Not so sad... (Score:1)
It will still have all same IBM employees -- the same people who came up with the cool technology in the first place.
Re:Not so sad... (Score:1)
Cheap computing in danger? (Score:1)
We all know the dangers of monopolies and how innovators can rapidly turn into blocks on progress, so we'll have to watch with care.
Yay! No more Death Stars! (Score:4, Funny)
AT&T? (Score:2)
Part of IBM's strategy for its future (Score:2)
Good news for sun or not ? (Score:1)
well now, since IBM's are owned by Hitachi, Sun does no longer have to buy their disks from a competitor.. they buy them from from a partner !
good news indeed
no one ever won by giving up, you know (Score:1, Interesting)
I think that the new spin off will do good however. I am curious though... and this is because I see this with my own eyes and hear through friends (it happens all the time and is increasing). When IBM started to shut down, did they let people go that were good quality workers that now must in essence reapply to the new spin off? Where there a bunch of decision makers that caused the problems (or just made them worse) that never found their job in danger? In other words, did the cancer just get moved into a new body? I sincerely hope not, for the workers and of course for myself as I would like inexpensive quality drives.
Re:no one ever won by giving up, you know (Score:2, Funny)
Probably a case of good bussiness... (Score:3, Insightful)
IBM has a good reasearch facility which have come up with new methods for storing data. Probably they want to raise money for the production of some of those methods. It's not that that division was skyrocketing their sales revenue anyway...
Reminds me of... (Score:2, Funny)
At a demo, the IBM sales rep asked for questions. My friend said "How fast is your drive?" This was at a time when 60ms access time was SOTA. The IBM rep said "80ms..." My friend retorts "But the current tech is 60ms" to which the IBM rep said "See? IBM's is faster".
Doh.
Glad to see IBM's HDD go...
Re:Reminds me of... (Score:2)
don't forget (Score:5, Funny)
park vs shipdisk (Score:1)
C:\>shipdisk
Re:park vs shipdisk (Score:2)
C:\>shipdisk
Back in the day, before the internet supported graphics and we had to dial in to the university's VAX 11/785 to read USENET with -- get this -- *KERMIT*, I actually renamed "park.com" to "logout.com" just so I could *pretend* I had a real network.
75gxp (Score:4, Funny)
Re:75gxp (Score:2)
Mine's still hauling the mail after about a year and a half, with no hint of possible trouble. (Then again, I don't overclock and I don't buy sh*tty components (cheap power supplies and such).)
Re:75gxp (Score:2)
Your anectdote means nothing. Your drive runs OK; all of mine (three) went bad almost out of the box. And no, I don't buy shitty compenents - my job depends on my machines staying up, so I don't fool around.
Every time someone mentions the 75GXP, someone else jumps in with their anecdote about how the drive works for them. Anecdotes don't make an argument. The 75GXPs (or at the 75GXPs produced in the Hungary fab) were defective drives, especially considering the high quality of IBM's previous drives.
I don't particularly like how IBM handled the affair. They should have admitted that they shipped bad drives and issued a recall. I'm not buying any more IBM drives, not because one line of their drives went bad (all other IBM drives I've had have been good), but because I'm not happy with the treatment I received. I RMAed all the bad drives I had, but I should have never have received these drives to begin with.
R&D (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:R&D (Score:1)
Personally I'm interested in what'll happen at Hursley [ibm.com] in the UK (used to work there) where IBM SSG [ibm.com] have a big department - hopefully it'll continue. Hursley has the world's first harddrive in its "museum"
Re:R&D (Score:2)
I think you mean "Winchester drive".
Re:R&D (Score:2)
Funny, I would have said drum drive. [pcguide.com] But whatever pleases you...
Re:R&D -- They'll probably continue... (Score:3, Insightful)
Making chips and hard drives is basically a commodity business. The real money is in developing new methods, products, etc. that can be licensed. IBM is very good at this.
Wonder what EMC thinks? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Wonder what EMC thinks? (Score:2)
Obligatory conspiracy theory (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sad...but good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather see IBM dump this branch and be able to earn royalty or have stock ownership in this new company than bog down their budget with this sector. By dumping this sector, they can now effectively use their R&D to develop something new. Maybe a new hdd technology, that they will license to the new company.
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:2)
So, in order to protect the busines model of companies that don't (can't) adopt to new markets, the consumers should suffer, hmmmm, where have I heard this before...
Likewise, it would be a nice thing if the top 100 open source gurus would die today ?
Jeezz, what are you smoking man ?
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:2)
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:1)
In terms of giving up on hard drives, IBM may also be looking at other technologies to replace it. I suspect this is a good short-term move for them (but not the IBM ex-employees) since its a commodity item that other companies are paying the research bill for.
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:1)
Certain IBM HDD operations are not included in the deal.
18,000 IBM employees and all their hard drive related patents will join about 6,000 Hitachi employees to form a new company that will be a subsidiary of Hitachi.
This probably means that some of IBM's quality minds who develop these drives will be going too, though I do agree that I'd rather have IBM doing more development than manufacturing. They've always been strong at new technologies development.
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:2)
Not good, just more of the same (Score:2)
The only thing that's happened here is a lot of people will be getting their paychecks from a different bank, and will no longer be required to wear a tie to work every day.
The hard drive market is not one so small or static that the loss of one manufacturer will affect the market in a negative way. This is merely a business decision, where IBM feels it can pursue its business goals most effectively by having the division exist as a seperate entity.
I wish all the employees good luck during the inevitable mass firings that will occur during the restructuring (they're not layoffs when you have no plans to recall the affected employees), and good luck inventing, and productizing the next big thing in storage technology. Here's a goal for you: a storage system for an HDTiVo.
Re:Not sad...but good (Score:2)
This does present some thorny problems for the portions of IBM that depended upon this group that is leaving, though I suspect it was the ironing out of those problems that took so long to form this agreement. Where will the Shark product be without a ready supply of drives? Or most of the eServers for that matter?
I'm glad to see the back of them (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM drives used to be good. They were expensive, but they were good. You knew that if you sprung the extra cash for an IBM drive you were paying for reliability.
Exactly when this changed I don't know, but what I do know is when I hear of people who have had a large capacity drive die suddenly overnight, my first reply is 'is it an IBM?' - literally every case within the last year has been 'yes - how did you know?'
I (and many others) are presently involved with a class action lawsuit [theregister.co.uk] against IBM for claiming that their drives are reliable when they are not. I unfortunately bought an IBM Deskstar 75GXP drive when looking for a solid reliable drive however this turned out to be a big mistake. It was the first IBM drive to use a glass platter to reduce costs etc. but unfortunately it simply made the thing extremely unreliable. My own tests have shown that the thing is VERY susceptible to overheating, and the only way I could get it to retain any data was to keep it as cool as I can (at this point using seperate screw on dual fan HDD cooler and extra case ventilation with nothing near the drive).
Bye IBM - you wont be missed (like my 50Gb of data was).
The change occurred when San Jose bit the dust (Score:2, Informative)
oops...sorry about that
Re:I'm glad to see the back of them (Score:1)
Perhaps you were just unlucky. Then again, mechanical devices do wear out over time.
Re:I'm glad to see the back of them (Score:2)
I got one returned from the factory (replacement for a dead one) and I haven't bothered opening the anti-static wrap yet because I went and bought a Maxtor during the month it took IBM to get around to sending me a HD.
It should be as good as any other they make, because it has no wear at all, since factory testing.
If you really think they're good, buy it for a fair market price.
Reply to this message, or to my email address, and we'll discuss price.
IBM is really in the R&D/Intellectual Property (Score:2, Interesting)
Sold like Slaves (Score:1, Interesting)
Thanks Big Blue!
Brought to you by the we-didn't-like-benefits-anyway-department
Re:Sold like Slaves (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Sold like Slaves (Score:1, Insightful)
To me, that sounds like something Hitachi might have required, to make sure they're actually getting the teams that are part of the deal.
What about their MicroDrives? (Score:1)
Not so sad.... (Score:1)
Three! The only other drive to go bad (on me) was a Western Digital... and I think that was a fluke.
No Suprise. (Score:1)
They sold the comunications side of the business to Cisco a couple of years ago.
They sell the HDD to Hitachi.
Looks like they want to focus on services and Big Iron. Stuff they do very well.
Not a Huge Surprise.. (Score:2, Informative)
I suppose the point of my story is that even several years ago, IBM has been looking for the places it can cut the fat, increase the profits. It's what all business folk do. And IBM has done their share of silly business moves that looked like good ideas, (*cough* TSS *cough*). And if it's doesn't work out, those who endure, will get folded back in and things could very well be better than before.
IBM does alot of drive business. How many times have you opened up your Apple G3 or G4, only to find the IBM HDD inside? Or how about your laptop? How many folks have upgraded their laptop HDD's with IBM drives? If IBM is getting out of the HDD business, there must be something in R&D that's pretty darn cool, or IBM's losing their competative edge.
Note sure how to take this (Score:2)
will hdd expire? (Score:1)
ibm sells their hdd business, but according to their [yahoo.com]
past they really have enough money to keep trying...
is there something that is much better than any hdd, so that ibm doesn't need hdd business anymore...
do you think so?
This is a sign of very good things to come (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Solid State non-volatile memory
2. Bio-electro non-volatile memory
3. Nano-MEMs based non-volatile memory
All this is good, and just a sign that the guys up top at Big Blue know when to get out of what should have been the first thing to be replaced in PC's.......a moving mechanism and primary point of failure in computers.
A long time coming (Score:2)
I certainly hope that this closure does not effect IBM's R&D on some of their next-gen storage devices (extremely-high-density hard disks, holographic storage, microdrive, etc). Those devices showed promise, and IBM is probably the only company capable of continuing such efforts (Their efforts could have equaled those of PARC)
So long, and thanks for the disk!
*cheer* oh yea... you betcha!! great DAY!!! (Score:2)
Long live Fujitsu drives.. my favorite!
Wake up people? (Score:2)
1) Smart technology companies dump technology that is on the way out. IBM is saying here that hard drives are on there way out and will be dissappearing in three years.
2) Solid state storage. In a few years we'll all be using 'flash crystals' or some other 50Gig per portable ounce technology. Hard drives are headed the way of bubble memory, and good riddance. They have been the bottleneck of systems for way to long now.
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
I was trying to be funny. Oh well. Failed miserably, I suppose. That's what I get for posting to
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
It seems that most of the problems were with the 75GXP drives, and even then, the problems were overinflated by Internet rumors. Things just die over time. Especially mechanical devices.
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
Re:So that means... (Score:1)
I love them, but it is just a matter of preference. So yes, I would take the 60 GXP drives. The benchmarks give me the performance in the areas that I want them. And for everday use, they have been very reliable.
If people go through 3 or 4 drives, then they are probably damaging them in some way. IBM has tools to check the drives properly. If you screw up your data, they can be unrecoverable to an OS like Windows (any drive can have this problem). I foobared my drives by trying to push my machine too hard. The data got corrupted and made my RAID array puke. The IBM tool fixed the problem.
I am willing to bet that 90% of these problems are related to operator issues, especially since a lot of the overclockers were buying IBM for a while, and this is where the news of the problems began to surface.
They make great drives, and I will kepp buying them until the end.
Re:So that means... (Score:2)
I'd buy a stone tablet and a chisel before I'd buy another Maxtor. I've had way too many of them go bad (three 5.1GB drives in five months a few years back, an 80-gigger more recently, and one or two more in between). By comparison, my 45GB 75GXP, two 60GB 60GXPs, and two 60GB 120GXPs have performed flawlessly.
Re:So that means... (Score:3, Funny)
Sector and read failures are an integral part of the ATA standard and are passed via the HD controller as responses to failures. People have NO RIGHT to complain about these failures in 75gxp, the linux kernel and fs subsystems are even designed to handle these errors gracefully and not panic. Do you complain when Java <throws> an exception? No, you put some code in the catch(e){}; Instead of complaining, do something about it, ext2 and ext3 should be adjusted so that you can use,
ext2 make install --unreliableHD-12
where the use of this switch whilst compiling ext2 will automatically incorporate RAID5-on-a-drive-Reed-Solomon-type ECC in the fs module with an ability to handle a 12percent probability of sector failure per year. The fs source code will decide the Shannon's minimum ECC distance on this information and inline the appropriate strength of ECC to absorb these failures, these extra ECC blocks will be stored on different tracks because HDs have a distinct lack of spatial ECC making them vulnerable to head-scratch and cylinder-not-found errors(?).
So there, we can all use 75gxp now, if the drive's own IDE ECC can't handle read errors, then instead escalate and use the added ECC in the ext2fs subssytem or in the kernel to perform ECC. That way the paranoid among us can hedge their bets against read failures and sector not found failures. Obviously global drive malfunctions such as total drive electronics failure or total bearing failure won't be protected against. Heck WinRAR compression has this ECC feature built in, why can't a fs which is far more critical have it built in? Quit whining.
Re:So that means... (Score:2)
Re:Big Blue Gone in 10 (Score:1)
This was always their strength. It was almost like they made computers to support their consulting initiative.
Don't ever count this out - large corporations will always want this kind of service. It gives them the warm fuzzys to know there is some place to point a finger.
Re:Big Blue Gone in 10 - No chance (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm. IBM has a PATENT division/business, in and of itself. All that arm does is collect royalties, and sign licensing deals.
That alone should be enough to keep IBM in business for decades.
Also note: Certain IBM HDD operations are not included in the deal.
I would suspect this is the research area that is working on the next-generation HDD stuff. I don't think IBM would transfer any existing patents it hasn't already milked all the royalties out of.
Re:Big Blue Gone in 10 (Score:1)
Re:good news for Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:good news for Linux? (Score:2)
Re:good news for Linux? (Score:2)