Toshiba is reportedly taking a serious look at purchasing OCZ Technology's consumer storage division to further their own solid state drive ambitions. The deal could be a win-win for both parties as Toshiba would have access to OCZ's controller technology and patents while OCZ may get a reliable supplier for 19nm NAND flash.
OCZ entered the memory market in 2002 and was a pioneer in the solid state drive industry in more recent years. The company discontinued their RAM production in early 2011 to focus almost exclusively on solid state drives. They did a lot for consumers by undercutting the competition but this was also part of their undoing as they created a low margin market.
The company fell on hard times last year after it was rumored that acquisition talks with Seagate fell through. OCZ founder and CEO Ryan Peterson resigned shortly after and a month later, board member Ralph Schmitt took over the helm. Schmitt announced plans to slash workforce by nearly 30 percent and discontinued some 150 product variations.
A recent report from the Motley Fool suggested the only valuable IP that OCZ has is the SATA SSD controller from Indilinx but with LSI and Marvell offering great alternatives at a fairly low cost, it's tough to see a lot of value.
In our most recent OCZ SSD review, the Vertex 450 proved to be a worthy successor to the Vertex 4 as it offered better performance, reliability and pricing. The drive even edged out the Vector in some instances.
OCZ declined to comment on the rumor.