Lite-On / Philips joint venture takes shape

It looks like joint ventures continue to be all the rage in the optical drive industry these days, with Lite-On and Philips today announcing the imminent arrival of their new combined effort, joining the likes of Sony-NEC, Hitachi-LG, and Toshiba-Samsung. As Daily Tech points out, this latest development doesn't exactly come as a surprise, with the groundwork for the new tag-team partnership laid almost a year ago. It seems that they've finally gotten everything sorted out, however, with the somewhat awkwardly-named Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions (or PLDS) set to make its official debut on May 1st. Under the deal, the company will continue to sell optical drives under the Lite-On brand, and continue to provide HP with its self-branded drives. While there's still no word on when we might see the first joint venture between joint ventures, at the rate these things are going, we certainly wouldn't rule it out.

[Neebs @ Apr 3rd 2007 5:31PM]

Lite-On drives have higher failure rates. Poor Philips, you made some nice stuff.

[tremor @ Apr 3rd 2007 5:44PM]

I've had the exact opposite luck. My liteon drive is still going strong after four years. Every Philips optical drive I've bought has died rather quickly. Not to mention their media is crap too.

[Maff @ Apr 3rd 2007 6:05PM]

depends on the drive, haven't philips bought BenQs drive tech, and my philips is a rebaged BenQ 1680, and its very good

[TheTayloeEffect @ Apr 3rd 2007 8:09PM]

I Lite-On is one of the most underrate manufacturers on the market.

[Nick @ Apr 4th 2007 10:17AM]

Looks like the Lite is On Phillips!

[Dan @ Nov 15th 2007 7:57AM]

Lame