Chinese want to buy SeaGate or Western Digital

waltky · 08-26-2007, 01:08 AM

Why don't they develope their own disk drive technology?

China seeks US disk drive maker
Sunday August 26, 2007: China is reportedly seeking to buy one of two US disk drive makers in a move sparking new concerns about transfers of sensitive technology.

Quote:

Citing William Watkins, chief executive of Seagate, one of the two disk drive manufacturers in the United States, the New York Times said the overture by an unidentified Chinese firm to buy one of them is adding to tensions over China's ambitions to develop advanced industrial and military technologies. "The overture ... has resurrected the issues of economic competitiveness and national security raised three years ago when Lenovo, a Chinese computer maker, bought IBM's personal computer business," the Times said.

The report did not identify which disk drive maker the Chinese firm sought to buy -- Western Digital is the other one -- and Watkins said that Seagate is not for sale, though he added that if an offered price was high enough shareholders could be enticed to sell. The report also noted that disk drives are not included on a government list of export-controlled technologies.

Nevertheless, it said, because the newest generation of hard disk drives include built-in security and encryption software and hardware, "the attempted purchase of an American disk drive company would require a security review by the federal government, according to several government officials." "The US government is freaking out," said Watkins, whose company recently began marketing drives with built-in encryption capabilities.

More China seeks US disk drive maker

hellmet · 02-25-2008, 06:27 PM

As it is almost every product I see in the US is made in the China. I keep wondering why there is so little being manufactured in the US. if I'm not wrong, these disk drives are manufactured in China too right? Then why buy the company?

bizwiz · 02-25-2008, 10:15 PM

Aside for national security risks, I don't see any problems with China buying these 2 disk firms since their manufacture is outsourced to other countries in Asia anyways.

waltky · 02-26-2008, 01:06 AM

hellmet wrote: I keep wondering why there is so little being manufactured in the US.

Due to trade agreements such as NAFTA, our leaders have enabled the outsourcing of factories to other countries, namely China India and Mexico.

The jobs that go offshore no longer provide revenue for the gov't. from employment taxes.

So not only are we giving away the store, we are breaking ourselves in the process.

And they wonder why we have such a huge deficit...

... Big mystery isn't it?

hellmet · 02-26-2008, 05:57 PM

Well, manufacturing is outsourced to China, and customer service is in India. One more irony, I find here in Texas. I can see Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, and african blacks. I wonder again, where are the Americans?