It seemed somewhat bizarre that Siemens AG would simply close its high-capacity Winchester disk drive operations without trying to recoup any money from the business – but every time the question was put, that was the answer the company gave. Not so: the Munchener has signed a letter of intent with Microscience International Corp, San Jose to sell manufacturing and worldwide marketing rights for the MegaFile line of Winchesters of 700Mb capacity and above. Microscience, founded in 1982, designs, develops and manufactures 3.5 and 5.25 half-height Winchesters, and will now be adding the 777Mb, 1.2Gb and 1.6Gb drives to its line. It plans to make the things at its Taiwan plant. No terms were disclosed.Siemens decided to get out of the business because its share of the world market was too small to justify the costs. It reckons that since 1983 it has shipped some 100,000 5.25 disks. The withdrawal means that 380 jobs will go, including 350 at the Munich plant; Siemens says it will be offering the affected employees other jobs in Munich.
