LaPine Technology Corp, formed to pioneer 3.5 Winchester disk drives four years ago, has closed down after its majority shareholder Prudential Bache Trade Corp held an auction of assets – mainly malfunctioning Winchesters returned for repair, and test and office equipment. Apart from its investment in LaPine, cash owed to Prudential Bache includes legal fees in connection with the defunct company’s $60m lawsuit filed in the summer against minority shareholder and manufacturing partner Kyocera Corp. The suit, which will be pursued by LaPine, operating as a shell company, alleges that Kyocera altered shipping and pricing schedules in an attempt to put it out of business and acquire its Winchester technology outright. Kyocera has formed a Memory Products division to market drives based on the LaPine technology, and currently offers 20Mb and 35Mb units, with a 40Mb in the works. Meantime five top managers from LaPine have moved on to form a new company, Comport, to design and manufacture small footprint Winchester disks in Milpitas.
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