Hasta La Gadget!

Everyone debating whether Western Digital or Hitachi drives are better can stop arguing now: WD has dropped $4.3 billion in a combination of stock and cash to buy Hitachi GST and fold the two storage technology companies into one. The new company will retain the Western Digital brand, and keep most of its staff and its headquarters in Irvine, California, but Hitachi GST President and CEO Steve Milligan will get a new office as President of Western Digital. 

The new merged company hopes its combined resources will put it in a better position to scale and compete with their now chief rival: Seagate. It may not be Seagate the company will really have to contend with though: as SSDs and NAND based flash memory becomes more popular in desktop PCs, notebook computers, and tablets, traditional spinning hard drives may be on the way out both in consumer and enterprise applications. 

Still, hard drives aren’t going anywhere just yet, and Western Digital hopes that the new merger will give it a stronger foothold in enterprise storage while retaining its hold over consumer technology. 

[via Forbes]