In an effort to speed up its work on erasable optical disk drives, Maxtor Corp, San Jose has signed a five-year agreement with $5,000m-a-year Kubota Ltd, Osaka to form a joint company out of its optical disk drive division. Kubota will invest $12m for a 25% stake in the new Maxoptix firm, and get worldwide manufacturing rights and exclusive sales rights in Japan for erasable drives developed by the new company. It will also provide $5m in licence fees, training and product development expenses. Maxtor will retain exclusive rights to market the venture’s optical disk drives in the Western Hemisphere and Europe. Maxoptix expects production of its previously announced 5.25 Tahiti erasable optical drive to begin in the third quarter 1989.
