Wohoo! I Got A New Job... Kinda...

[Beezer]

As of 12:01 am today I am officially an employee of Western Digital - the disk drive maker.

Actually, I will be doing the exact same thing I was doing at my old job -- making wafers for magnetic recording heads. Not only that, but I will be showing up at the same place and working with the same people.... because my old company (Read-Rite Corp) declared bankruptcy (chapter 7) in June, and WD won the bidding war that took place last week.

Evidently there were about 7 companies that submitted bids either for all or part of the Read-Rite assets. It came down to a bidding war between WD and a joint group consisting of Seagate, Hitachi (formerly IBM), and Alps. Western Digital was the only one that wanted the entire package including the people. Lucky for us they won with a bid of approx $90 million.

So... now I'm going to have to start saying nice things about WD drives. Actually, I've never used one so they may very well be good drives.

[ALBPM]

Way to go Beezer!!!!!!

I bet you were sweating it out for awhile there not knowing what would happen.

[Tjalfe]

so when can we expect cheap WD drive in the MURC happy shopper forum?

[The PIT]

Originally posted by tjalfe
so when can we expect cheap WD drive in the MURC happy shopper forum?

Good idea.

The only cloud on the horizon is that companies that get taken over normally get swallowed and then relocated.

[az]

I don't think they'd be so quick to relocate a whole fab

AZ

[Beezer]

Yes, indeed I have been wondering what my fate would be for the past 2 months. I was fortunate enough (only about 15 of us chosen out of 800 people) to be hired by the bankruptcy court to stay on and keep things kind of maintained while showing the facility to prospective buyers and escorting former employees to their desks to retrieve personal belongings.

During that time, many companies came through. Most of them just wanted to strip the facility of some key equipment or were just interested in our intellectual property -- pretty depressing actually. If Seagate/Hitachi had won, they wanted to keep me on board there for another 3 months or so -- until they could empty the place. My VP (who has accepted an offer with Hitachi) hinted to me that I would most probably be offered a permanent position with Hitachi after all the dust had settled... but the Western Digital scenerio was the best -- they are hiring back more than 600 of the Read-Rite folks and I am getting back 19 of the 20 engineers and technicians that worked for me (the other one already found a new job).

[Beezer]

Originally posted by The PIT
Good idea.

The only cloud on the horizon is that companies that get taken over normally get swallowed and then relocated.

This is not an option for WD because they do not have any prior experience or knowledge on how to make the heads. We have always been their largest supplier. Now, instead buying them from us, they have reduced their heads cost by almost half (or so they forcast) -- that's why they were willing to pay $90 million for us. Another reason why they needed to hire all of us back -- because they have no one within their company that knows how to make them. This puts WD in a similar situation as Seagate (the largest world-wide maker of drives) which also makes their own heads. Also our facility is one of the best in the industry -- as all the visiting companies (including Seagate and IBM/Hitachi) often commented during our tours.

[Jammrock]

Congrats! I use WD drives a lot and have very rarely run into problems with them. I hope they treat you well.

Jammrock

[Helevitia]

Great news Beezer Now you have to go to dinner with us!

Dave

[GNEP]

Good news. Must feel like a real releif.

[Ajax]

Congrats

[az]

Oh, yes, forgot that: Congrats

AZ

[Admiral]

Congrats

Think prices for WD drives will drop somewhere in the near future or do they need to recover that investment for now ?

[Beezer]

Thanks all!

Great news Beezer Now you have to go to dinner with us!

Yes, indeed. First round of drinks is on me.

[KvHagedorn]

Best of luck Beezer.. Hope everything works out as well as it sounds!