Western Digital
History:
Western Digital was established in 1970 as a maker of specialized semiconductors.
The Company grew to become listed among the Fortune 500 industrial
companies in 1988, the year it began manufacturing hard disk drives.
Revenues surpassed $1 billion in 1990 and $2 billion in 1995. The Company
ended FY97 with
$4.18 billion in revenue.
Charles A. Haggerty, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, has led the
Company's management team since 1992, when he joined Western Digital from
International Business Machines Corporation. Kathryn A. Braun, President
and Chief Operating Officer, Personal Storage Division, has headed the
Company's
personal storage business since 1984.
In 1994, a year before its 25th anniversary, Western Digital became
the first U.S.-headquartered, multinational firm awarded company-wide ISO
9001 by the
International Standards Organization, linking all its operations with
a consistent global standard for quality processes.
Operations are carried on in two business units, the Personal Storage
Division and the Enterprise Storage Group. The latter was established in
late 1994 and began
manufacturing high-capacity hard drives for servers and workstations
in calendar 1996. Operations of a third group, which provided multimedia
and connectivity
products, were sold in 1995 and early 1996 in order to provide a greater
focus on data storage management.
Western Digital's history is replete with examples of storage technological
leadership. Since 1992, the Company has regularly appeared first-to-market
and
first-to-volume with the greatest capacity per platter in the hard
drive industry. Among Western Digital’s other technological accomplishments
are these:
Western Digital securities have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1991.
Personal Storage Division:
Western Digital is a recognized market and technology leader in disk
drives for personal computers. Today, the Company's 3.5-inch Enhanced IDE
drives range in
capacity from 1.6 gigabyte to 6.4 gigabytes, meeting the storage needs
of tomorrow's most demanding applications. The award-winning Caviar family
of hard drives
is found in computers made by leading systems producers, including
Apple, Bull-Zenith, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Micron,
NEC and Siemens-Nixdorf. Exceptional performance, quality and reliability
have also made Western Digital Caviar the hard drive of choice for distributors,
resellers, and end users throughout the world.
Western Digital was one of the key architects of the Integrated Drive
Electronics (IDE) interface, which became the personal computer hard drive
interface standard
in 1986. The Company went on to develop, in 1993, Enhanced IDE, which
handles higher capacities and supports faster data transfers and wider
expansion
options.
Western Digital's Personal Storage Division has been honored by the
industry's top trade publications, with such awards as the Computer Reseller
News "Channel
Champion"
Award for 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997; PC World's "World Class"
Award for 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997; the 1994 PC/Computing MVP Award;
1994 PC Magazine Technical Excellence nominee for Enhanced IDE technology;
1994 PC/Computing Innovative Product of the Year nominee for Enhanced IDE;
and Computer Shopper's "Best Buy" Award for 1993, 1994, and 1995. The
Personal Storage Group has been honored by top trades publications in Europe
as
well, with awards such as Computer Totaal's (Netherlands) 1996 "Readers
Choice" Award; PCDirect's (France) 1996 "Best Buy" Award; PCDirect's (United
Kingdom) 1996 "Readers Award"; 1996 "Best Buy" Award from Computer
Buyer (United Kingdom); the 1996 PCtip (Switzerland) "Drive of the Year"
Award;
and the 1996 PC Praxis' (Germany) "Editors' Choice" Award.
Enterprise Storage Group:
In 1994, Western Digital formed a research and development center focusing
on cost-effective, high-performance hard drives for multi-user, multi-tasking
environments. The Enterprise Storage Group offers high-capacity SCSI
drives (2.1 GB, 4.3 GB and 9.1 GB) for high-end PCs, workstations and servers.
The new group's products are manufactured in a new plant in Singapore,
near the company's long-proven sources of supply, and will be based on
technologies and
production methods well-established in Western Digital's Caviar line
of hard disk drives.
Quality Orientation:
Western Digital's total quality commitment is woven through every aspect
of the Company, from engineering to manufacturing to administration. Its
company-wide
ISO 9001 registration, earned in 1994, links all Western Digital organizations
with a consistent global standard for quality processes. The commitment
to ISO 9001
quality standards complements the Company's continuous process improvement
program, which has been a part of Western Digital's culture since 1990.