Hi there, I hope your fall into Autumn is starting well. This is a season which traditionally signals change, and in the flash industry we have some news to report.
After some scrapped plans to sell off the flash (SanDisk) division or merge it with a supply chain partner (Kioxia — Toshiba’s former flash division), Western Digital announced in March that their HDD and Flash divisions will become two separate companies. This means SanDisk will be spun out to operate on its own for the first time since 2016.
After the news, things were pretty quiet until this month when emails started to come to us announcing a “soft split” of the sales team which is now underway. Beginning October 1st, WD will have two sales groups, one for HDD and the other for flash, and two separate websites. Management structures are being reshuffled as well.
It is unclear how this will eventually impact SanDisk as a brand and the availability of their products. While we are sure every effort will be made to keep things running smoothly, we’re advising our customers to do two things:
- Take a look at your upcoming demand. Let’s get a forecast together which ensures you have product when you need it, at the price you expect.
- Consider testing and approving at least one off-brand solution. I can recommend equivalent solutions from solid brands like Samsung, Transcend and GoRAM. It’s always good to have a substitution approved before the unexpected happens.
I hope this information was helpful. As always we try to keep you well informed so we can navigate the new flash memory landscape together. Please contact me when you have a moment so we can do some planning. Until then, take care.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
