It’s a done deal: Western Digital is purchasing its competition.  Another enormous contract shocked the tech community as Western Digital (WD) hands over $4.3 billion in cash and stock transactions to complete the buy-out of Hitachi Ltd.’s major arm, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST). In this light, the union will pave the way for customer-centric cloud storage.

John F. Coyne, President and chief executive of Western Digital, expressed his excitement and confidence regarding the deal, saying, “The acquisition of Hitachi GST is a unique opportunity for WD to create further value for our customers, stockholders, employees, suppliers and the communities in which we operate. We believe this step will result in several key benefits—enhanced R&D capabilities, innovation and expansion of a rich product portfolio, comprehensive market coverage and scale that will enhance our cost structure and ability to compete in a dynamic marketplace. The skills and contributions of both workforces were key considerations in assessing this compelling opportunity. We will be relying on the proven integration capabilities of both companies to assure the ongoing satisfaction of our customers and to bring this combination to successful fruition.”

Under the terms of the agreement that brings together two industry leaders, WD will cash out $3.5 billion and the remaining will be paid via common shares based on its $30.01 stock valuation (that will sum up to $750 million). The headquarters will remain at Irvine, California, WD’s present home, with the executive structure staying about the same.

Despite working behind the scenes on a major deal, Hitachi has seen various developments in other segments, including the additional VAAI support to VMware’s global expansion. Hitechi also claimed victory in cloud storage services hunt when it unveiled the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform or VSP that promotes data portability and scalability. Prior to this acquisition, Hitachi saw a spike in its profits share, with an eventful comeback was planned thereafter.

On a more technical note, this shocking news came as a consolidation of what is said to be as a lousy business for HDD enterprise. With all goods coming together from Western Digital and Hitachi GST, the potential the business can be fully exploited towards industry growth and validation.