Manufacturing of Japanese-branded hard drives is big business in Thailand. I have a friend in Bangkok who works for Seagate. He is Thai, and a brilliant engin

Manufacturing of Japanese-branded hard drives is big business in Thailand. I have a friend in Bangkok who works for Seagate. He is Thai, and a brilliant engineer – hard working, smart, young and the kind of person any company would be lucky to have. I think we are seeing now how important Thai industry is to the worldwide hard drive market. On a somewhat related note, his family is fairly wealthy (by Thai standards) because they run factories that manufacture lots of random stuff. They once told me that they have 6 months to get products to market before the Chinese copy it. Compared to a Thai manufacturer, Chinese factory labor "is effectively free" – their words.