Babineau said it is important to remember that mergers like this are much more complicated than most basic technology deals because the product overlap is almost 100%, "which requires a significant level of rationalization across manufacturing lines, supply chains, and product roadmaps, amongst others.

"This particular deal will likely face the same hurdles, but over the long term it is a very smart move because success in the disk drive business is measured by scale," he said.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Storage Topic Center.