Robert Soderbery on go-to-market
From Flash Perspective: A Conversation with Rob Soderbery · · WesternDigitalCorporation
“We sell primarily to technology companies. Those technology companies are building solutions which they're delivering to end users... I need to understand the entire stream for myself all the way out to the end user. Collaboration is core to that — we have to partner with our customers and the technology companies that we sell to.”
On , Robert Soderbery, Executive Vice President & GM of Flash Business at Western Digital Corp, spoke about go-to-market during Flash Perspective: A Conversation with Rob Soderbery on WesternDigitalCorporation.
About Robert Soderbery
In a May 2021 interview, Rob Soderbery, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Flash Business at Western Digital, discussed the company's market position and strategy. He stated that Western Digital has "amazing throw weight in the industry" and described the company as "40% of the bits in the world" and "35% of NAND production." Soderbery said that "virtually every innovation and technology today is powered by Flash," citing applications such as connected cars, VR headsets, and the public cloud. He also argued that hard drives remain the practical choice for long-term data storage due to a "5 or 6x price performance advantage," while Flash is suited for new consumer devices requiring performance. Soderbery highlighted several product announcements as proof points of Western Digital's strategy, including the SanDisk Professional brand, extensions to the WD_BLACK franchise, a partnership with Percona for MySQL and ZNS integration, and a new UFS 3.1 platform for embedded components. He emphasized that the company's approach involves understanding the entire value chain and collaborating with technology customers, stating, "It's not just about NAND. It's about how we deliver products and enable these segments and these customers."