Shenzhen-based Great Wall Technology announced on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with IBM that allowed ExcelStor Technology, a Great Wall Technology subsidiary, to make 40GB hard disks for IBM's new Deskstar 120GXP computer.
The first made-in-China IBM hard disks are expected to be on the market in the latter half of this year. The initial output is expected to be enough to handle more than 1,000 IBM computers. But, the goal is to produce 10 million hard disks a year.
Great Wall has been the mainland's sole producer of hard drives, but its products were intended mainly for its own brand of computers. 'None of the other Chinese IT enterprises has the ability to produce hard drives to rival foreign brands like IBM or WesternDigital,'' according to a purchasing agent at the Tsinghua Unisplendour Group, a local producer of laptops.
The purchasing agent said he still was not quite certain about the future of the ExcelStor products, because 'big PC producers usually have established relations with suppliers and it may not be easy to persuade them to try new products they're unfamiliar with.''
IBM has been co-operating with Great Wall Technology since 1994 in producing PCs, circuit boards, and memory products. One of IBM and Great Wall's joint ventures, International Information Products (Shenzhen), has become one of the mainland's major computing equipment producers and has ambitions of becoming one of Asia's largest exporters.
That plan would benefit everyone, according to Doug Grose, an official in charge of the IBM memory technology section, because IBM could cut costs by co-operating with a local producer, while the locals would have more job opportunities.