Irvine-based Western Digital Corp. is set to create a research and development site in Singapore.
The disk drive maker plans to invest some $400 million in its Singapore operations in the next five years.
Western Digital will build on the acquisition of an area factory it got when it purchased some assets of Japanese glass maker Hoya Corp. for $235 million last year.
Hoya is the biggest supplier of glass substrates, which are applied as a thin layer on the spinning magnetic disks that make up the bulk of a drive.
The Singapore expansion is set to “leverage the local talent pool and expertise of research organizations” to develop advanced disk drive technologies, the company said.
Western Digital said it plans to hire some 65 engineers in Singapore in the next few years.
“Singapore has built a wealth of engineering talent, now available to Western Digital,” Chief Operating Officer Tim Leyden said.
Western Digital’s drives go into PCs, laptops, external storage devices and other consumer electronics.
It sees nearly $10 billion in yearly sales and had a recent market value of more than $7 billion.
Blizzard Blunder
In two stories that ran in the Feb. 21 issue of the Business Journal, I understated Blizzard Entertainment Inc.’s 2010 sales.
Blizzard’s parent, Santa Monica’s Activision Blizzard Inc., reported record sales of $1.7 billion for its local unit.
Irvine-based Blizzard is the world’s top maker of online games and the county’s biggest software maker, far eclipsing Irvine’s Sage Software Inc., a maker of business software for small and medium businesses.
In other Blizzard news, Activision recently got out of a patent infringement suit brought by Texas-based BetaNet LLC last year. The suit also named 18 other companies.
Activision was dropped from the suit this month, according to a report on legal news website Law360.com.
BetaNet claimed that Blizzard’s flagship game “World of Warcraft” infringed on a patent for activating PC software remotely.
The complaint alleged that Activision infringed on the patent by using and selling “World of Warcraft,” a software program that can be downloaded via the Internet or purchased as a disc.
Other big tech players were named in the complaint, including Xerox Corp., Nvidia Corp. and Motorola Inc.
It’s not clear why Activision was dismissed from the case.
It could have reached an undisclosed settlement with BetaNet.
Nvidia was dropped from the case in December after settling with BetaNet.
Some 12 million people play “World of Warcraft,” an online game in which players face off in quests, raids and battles in a fantasy world filled with orcs, trolls, elves and other races.
Angel Investors
Irvine’s Tech Coast Angels, a loose network of angel investors in Southern California, upped the number of deals it made by 30% in 2010.
The group made 31 investments—made up of 12 new deals and 19 follow-on investments—that totaled some $6 million last year.
It helped raise an additional $33 million through other sources.
The group invested in startups in technology, biotech and pharmaceutical, social media, financial services, consumer products and green technologies, among others.
It also counted some successful exits last year.
Monrovia-based Green Dot Corp., which makes reloadable prepaid debit cards, yielded more than a 100 times return for its early investors with its July initial public offering.
Los Angeles-based Language Weaver Inc. was bought by SDL Tridion Inc. for $43 million and San Diego-based Trius Therapeutics Inc. raised $50 million with its August offering.
Tech Coast Angels has been working on making the angel funding process faster and easier.
“We’ve streamlined the process and added new events and opportunities for entrepreneurs to connect with our members,” Chairman Mike Napoli said.
Some local companies that received funding from the Tech Coast Angels last year include Irvine’s Vigilistics Inc., a maker of business software that collects, analyzes and records manufacturing data; Huntington Beach-based CosNet Inc., a maker of Web conferencing software and Irvine’s YouMail Inc., a maker of visual voicemail software.
Analyst Projection
One analyst gushed about Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. on the heels of strong projections for sales of Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4 this year and the release of the second-generation iPad last week.
FBR Capital Markets Corp. analyst Craig Berger said during a CNBC appearance last month that he expects Apple to sell some 100 million iPhones this year.
That’s good news for Broadcom, which has chips in the do-all devices. Broadcom also is thought to have touch-screen chips in the iPad tablet.
Berger’s checks show Apple’s iPhone production for the first half of the year is “incredibly strong” and that forecasts could move higher.
Berger also said he thinks Broadcom is a “phenomenal” company and “clearly an industry leader.”
Broadcom is the biggest chipmaker here. Analysts are eyeing sales of $7.8 billion in 2011, up nearly 15% from last year.
