The announcement makes it sound as if the two are completely independent companies, yet the substance of the announcement makes it clear that Hyundai Electronics Industries Co is pulling all the strings at San Jose disk-maker Maxtor Corp these days. Hyundai Electronics, which has a 40% stake in Maxtor, is to manufacture Maxtor-designed hard disk drives for Maxtor as a first step to taking full control of the process. The agreement is at the memorandum of understanding stage, but the two hope to complete a definitive agreement by next quarter, and begin volume production by the summer at a Korean manufacturing site currently under consideration by Hyundai. The additional manufacturing capacity provided by Hyundai will initially supplement production at Maxtor’s disk assembly plant in Singapore, but an ongoing exchange of technology will enable Hyundai to assume a leadership role in disk drive manufacturing. Maxtor products currently range from PCMCIA mobile storage products to 3.5 AT drives for the desktops in capacities of up to 1.2Gb.
