Western Digital (WDC)

 

If we are unable to timely and cost-effectively develop heads and media, following our planned acquisition of Komag, with leading technology and overall quality, our ability to sell our products may be significantly diminished, which could materially and adversely affect our business and financial results.

 

Under our business plan, we are developing and manufacturing a substantial portion of the heads used in some of the hard drives products we manufacture and, following our planned acquisition of Komag, we intend to develop and manufacture a substantial portion of the media used in some of the hard drive products we manufacture. Consequently, we are more dependent upon our own development and execution efforts and less able to take advantage of head technologies, and will be less able to take advantage of media technologies, developed by other manufacturers. Technology transition for head and media designs is critical to increasing our volume production of heads and media. There can be no assurance, however, that we will be successful in timely and cost-effectively developing and manufacturing heads or media for products using future technologies. We also may not effectively transition our head or planned media design and technology to achieve acceptable manufacturing yields using the technologies necessary to satisfy our customers’ product needs, or we may encounter quality problems with the heads we manufacture or media we plan to manufacture. In addition, we may not have access to external sources of supply without incurring substantial costs. For example, we recently began using perpendicular recording heads in certain of our products. We face various challenges in ramping the manufacturing volume of these products and if we do not adequately address these challenges, or if we encounter quality problems with the heads we manufacture or media we plan to manufacture for these products, our continued shipment of these products may be delayed, impairing our ability to realize revenue from these products.