IBM OEM MR Head Business Reaches Milestone
IBM announced it has reached a milestone in the shipment of magnetoresistive (MR) and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads, key components in helping increase the capacity of hard disk drives as well as make them faster and more reliable, according to published reports.
IBM’s OEM MR head business has reportedly shipped more than 50 million MR units and 2.5 million GMR units since the business began in late 1996. According to market research firm, TrendFOCUS, IBM has shipped more GMR heads than any other company. This is based on the number of GMR heads IBM has shipped through both its hard drive and OEM MR Head businesses.
IBM integrates these heads into its own hard drive products and markets the components to other original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. There has been a fivefold increase in product shipments this year from the OEM MR Head business unit, part of IBM's Storage Systems Division and a key member of IBM's Technology Group.
--L. Greenemeier