The growth in digital data and rapidly evolving storage landscape require Western Digital Corporation to anticipate market demands and adjust our business accordingly. We must continue aligning the competencies and operating model of our company to the changing demands of the marketplace. Non-volatile memory (NVM) is a critical development area where we are heavily investing in advanced technologies and future products.
Earlier this year we formed the Western Digital Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG) to accelerate technology innovation in the broader storage ecosystem, and NVM development has been the primary focus area. One of the SIG programs has been development of core NVM IP, focused on high-performance storage technologies, which will be the building blocks of future SSHD and SSD products – key components of Western Digital’s business strategy. We will continue steadily investing in this promising area.
A second SIG program – an SSD product – relied heavily on partner technologies and, after lengthy review, we have determined the program does not meet our go-forward business objectives, the needed competitive advantage or our OPEX model. That program will be closed to enable greater focus on core Western Digital technologies that could provide us a leveraged position in the marketplace in the future.
An unfortunate consequence of these changes is a reduction in headcount within our SIG team. SIG teams in the US will be consolidated into two locations – Irvine and San Jose. Our Taiwan office will remain operational, albeit with a smaller team.
The go-forward SIG team will be led by Alan Kan. Michael Hajeck, who has been a strong leader of WD’s SSD efforts since we acquired SiliconSystems in 2009, will be leaving the company. I would like to thank Michael for his extensive contributions to Western Digital. His relentless passion, drive and strategic leadership have helped the company build technical and strategic capability for our participation in the marketplace for NVM technologies.
I also want to thank all SIG team members who have remained committed to their programs and focused on the group’s objectives. Please support the team as they work through the transition.
Let me assure you that Western Digital is firmly committed to addressing the growth of digital data in a leadership role. We are building and shaping the company to be in the strongest strategic position to win in today’s and tomorrow’s storage landscape.