It's not a big secret here that the DVD burners of Philips and BenQ are the same, with the only difference being their firmware. This was possible due to a joint venture of Philips and BenQ where Philips was mainly the supplier of technology and patents, and where BenQ supplied the joint venture with relative cheap labour.
Today, Philips has announced on their website that the digital storage joint venture with BenQ, which was named Philips & BenQ Digital Storage or PBDS, is no longer. The company has now teamed up with Lite-On and PBDS will be renamed PLDS.
Recently, BenQ and Lite-On already teamed up and made changes to their digital storage divisions.
