Western Digital isn’t alone in taking a cautious approach to the SSD market. As one of the biggest makers of hard drives, it's easy to see why Western Digital (WD) would want to protect its investments in traditional HDDs until the market for SSDs is more mature and clear.

WD’s SVP for marketing says that the company hasn't ruled out entering the SSD market -- it is simply waiting for the appropriate opportunity to do so. Rutledge is quoted by The Register saying, "Western Digital enters markets that exist, announces products when they are available, and runs a tight model with opportunities greater than resources such that we take a controlled, methodical, sequential, incremental approach to product portfolio expansion."

WD sees two interesting SSD markets that include low-end and high-end. The low-end is described as the market for SSDs that retail for under $30 and are used in consumer handheld mobile platforms like phones and cameras. The high-end market is described as SSDs aimed at performance applications where the drivers are over $199 each.

Rutledge thinks that a new category of consumer handheld mobile platforms will crop up that slot in between the typical smartphone and the netbook. The platform would have a larger screen that the smartphone in the area of 7-inches to 9-inches, but smaller than that of the netbook. The product category is dubbed “smartbook” by Rutledge.

Rutledge likens the difference between SSDs and HDDs to car engines. He says that hard drives are good for mainstream performance in cost, power and performance making them the four, six and eight cylinder engines of the storage world. The NAND based SSD is good for use in very small one of two cylinder engines and V10 and larger high-performance applications.

The crux here is that WD is playing a wait and see game with the SSD market, much like Seagate. When it is clear that the SSD has a niche and is profitable WD will jump in with both feet.