Western Digital Announces Joint Venture With China-based Technology Company

Well, there goes WD.

cyclone3d said:

Well, there goes WD.

Click to expand...

Why? WD is merely penetrating the China market segment with their existing solutions.

Steve said:

Western Digital® Corp. and Unisplendour Corporation Limited today announced an agreement to form a joint venture to market and sell Western Digital’s current data center storage systems in China and to develop data center storage solutions for the Chinese market in the future. The joint venture will be owned 51% by Unis and its subsidiary, Unissoft (Wuxi) Group Co., Ltd., and 49% by Western Digital. It will combine Unis’ knowledge of the Chinese market with Western Digital’s storage solutions portfolio.

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Sounds like they were presented with artificial barriers to entry into that market, where the only solution allowed by the Chinese government was to form a "joint venture" where the state-owned Chinese corporation retained majority control. Had Western Digital refused, the Chinese company likely would have simply copied their designs anyway without regards for patents, etc, so at least this way WD can make some money

Well crap... Wonder how this will turn out...

Yeah, there'll be like a lot of doom and gloom types that get upset about anything involving China and they'll loudly announce it in a forum thread not realizing that all they're doing is screaming, "I don't understand international business, trade, or global economics!" as loudly as they possibly can.

"U.S. Tech Giants May Blur National Security Boundaries in China Deals"


"HONG KONG — One Chinese technology company receives crucial technical guidance from a former People’s Liberation Army rear admiral. Another company developed the electronics on China’s first atomic bomb. A third sells technology to China’s air-to-air missile research academy...

Their ties to the Chinese military run deep, and they all have something else in common: Each Chinese company counts one of America’s tech giants — IBM, Cisco Systems or Microsoft — as a partner...While the capabilities shared in the partnerships are commercial in nature, such technologies have also become more critical to defense. That is spurring concerns that widespread cooperation with Chinese companies could quickly increase China’s fundamental technological capabilities in a way that could easily help military research and operations"


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/t...-security-boundaries-in-china-deals.html?_r=0