It is no secret that Sony was using internal parts of Lite-On in their CD-RW drives, and it seems that the two companies are now going to work more closely as Digitimes reports that Japanese Sony and Taiwanese Lite-On have signed a strategical agreement that will benefit both companies.
Lite-On will receive more orders from Sony and Sony will lower the license fees for its technologies for Lite-On. Japanese companies are currently struggling to fight the heavy competition from the cheap but good quality products made in Taiwan and South Korea (Samsung, LG)
Shipments of Sony's slim-type DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drives have decreased since the fourth quarter, and therefore both companies hope to expand their market share. Lite-On IT also will increase its key components purchasing from Sony. |
It is believed that Lite-On IT's projection of increasing slim-type optical drives shipments from 50,000 units last year to five million units this year was made in consideration of the strategic alliance with Sony, the Commercial Times said.
The two companies were said to be cooperating on developing DVD-Dual chipsets, scheduled for launch in the second quarter. These highly integrated chipsets combine support for the DVD+RW and DVD-RW standards and could help DVD-Dual optical drives/players become mainstream products.
The combination of Sony and Lite-On creates a very big and powerfull company on the optical storage market. While Lite-On is currently very popular on the CD-RW market, Sony has entered the DVD recorder market very succesfully with the dual format DRU-500 drive.
Source: Digitimes.com
