Despite the $150m cash investment from Hyundai Electronics Industries Co Ltd and several related members of the Hyundai Business Group of Seoul, South Korea, San Jose-based Maxtor Corp still needs to slim, and it is cutting its workforce by 500 in a restructuring to streamline engineering, operations and administration. It looks to the restructuring to save more than $10m per quarter and took a charge for it of $88.4m against its third quarter figures (see Company Results), for a $121.3m net loss.Maxtor is shifting its strategy and devoting resources to the design, manufacturing and sales of its 7000 Series of 1 high, 3.5 disk drives and its new line of mobile computing products, including the MobileMax family of PCMCIA-based mobile computing data storage products, which includes 1.8 disk drives and Flash memory cards. It is putting all new product development into its Longmont, Colorado facility, and will continue heavy manufacturing at its Hong Kong and Singapore plants. Now that Hyundai has 40% of Maxtor, Hyundai Electronics chairman M H Chung will become Maxtor’s chairman. Under the agreement, Hyundai may not acquire more than 45% of Maxtor except in a tender for all outstanding shares – unless a hostile bidder appears. Maxtor also added two drives to the 7000 Series, the two-platter 546Mb, 7546 and the single-platter 276Mb 7276, which are expected to go into volume production this quarter. No prices were given. The comprehensive refocussing of the company seems to end its long-standing role as the market-leading pioneer of super-high-capacity mainstream drives, a field in which Seagate Technology Corp currently holds the baton.
