Hitachi to Spend $200 million to Increase iPod Mini Drive Output by 10-fold

according to this Reuters article on Forbes.com. Hitachi makes the 1-inch 4-GB microdrive used in the iPod Mini and will spend the funds on its plant in Thailand. Production will increase from 200,000 per quarter to 2 million. Apple previously announced that it wouldn't be until July before production of the iPod Mini would be high enough to ship them outside of the U.S. But supplies are still highly constrained in the U.S., with a 6-week or so wait. Since the microdrives were invented by IBM, other manufacturers will probably jump in to compete with Hitachi and allow a faster ramp up of iPod Mini production. [Dana Baggett]