The Toshiba-Samsung consortium TSST (Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology) has reportedly stopped production of optical drives. TSST manufactured CDRW+DVDR, DVDRW+BDR, and BDRW drives under the Samsung brand. Samsung and Toshiba co-founded TSST in 2004 to manufacture optical drives under the Samsung brand name, and to make unbranded OEM optical drives for use in Toshiba and Samsung branded notebooks.
Samsung had to partner with Toshiba as it held the requisite optical disc technology licenses and patents. LG Electronics similarly partnered with Hitachi, another founding-member of several optical disc standard SIGs, to make up HL-DT (Hitachi-LG Data-Storage Technology), and sell drives under the LG brand. Speaking to KitGuru, a TSST sales manager stated "it's true that TSST(Samsung ODD) stopped production from Mid-April." All is not over for TSST, though. "We will continue the ODD business aggressively to obtain about 50% of market share," and will "release a new ODD to the market," he added.
