Western Digital Sending Executives to Moscow to Explore Business Possibilities
As the U.S. government considers relaxing controls on computer exports to the Soviet Union, Western Digital Corp. of Irvine is dispatching several executives to Moscow next week to explore ways to do business with the Soviets.
Three Western Digital representatives will meet with officials of several Soviet government agencies “to get a better understanding of what their requirements might be,” said Joseph Pleso, Western Digital’s vice president of international sales.
Western Digital manufactures a wide variety of components that are used to build personal computers. Pleso said the company hopes to learn more about the Soviet Union’s plans for increasing the use of PCs throughout its society and, possibly, setting up its own PC manufacturing industry.
“If the Soviets intend to build their own personal computer, we’d like to be able to sell them our products,” Pleso said.
Considering Change
Meanwhile, the federal government is considering loosening controls on the types of PC products that American manufacturers can ship to Soviet Bloc nations.
Michael Liikala, director of the Newport Beach office of the U.S. Bureau of Export Administration, said the government is reviewing whether to allow exports to the Soviet Union of PCs that use a microchip first introduced in the United States in 1982. The particular technology under review involves so-called 286-based computers powered by Intel Corp.’s popular 80286 microchip.
“There’s an assessment being done in Washington as to whether 286-based computer technology is currently available in sufficient quantity and quality from other (Western nations) to the Soviet Union,” Liikala said. “If we determine that’s true, then we’re required by Congress to decontrol these products and allow them to be shipped to the Eastern Bloc.
“It’s not state-of-the-art technology, and that’s why we may decontrol it,” he added.
Personal computers using the Intel 80286 chip are widely available from foreign manufacturers in Japan, South Korea and other nations. The most advanced personal computers manufactured in the United States and other Western nations use more sophisticated chips such as the Intel 80386, which came to the market in 1985.
A lifting of a ban on 80286 technology would not only affect personal computer makers but also producers of medical, oceanographic and other electronic equipment that use that type of microchip, Liikala said.
Western Digital has already had some business dealings with the Soviet Bloc. Last July, the company announced a contract to sell more than $1 million of computer components to a Bulgarian company.
But 8 months later, the Irvine firm has yet to ship its first product to Bulgaria because the Department of Commerce hasn’t yet approved an export license.
Western Digital’s Pleso said the company still expects government approval for the Bulgarian order, and isn’t sure what is causing the delays. “They (the Commerce Department) just keep saying, ‘We’re still working it.’ ”
Liikala said the Commerce Department is often slow to approve export licenses to the Soviet Bloc, partly because they sometimes also require approval by the Defense Department and other agencies. But he said the average time for processing licenses to the area was 50 days last year. He could not explain why the Western Digital application is taking so much longer.
