Quantum has decided to exit the hard drive business after 21 years in a bid to boost its share of the higher-end storage market.

On Friday, shareholders approved the sale of the firm's hard drive business to Maxtor, one of Quantum's main rivals.

The unpredictable market has been feeling the pinch from low margins for some time, but the supplier now intends to focus on selling services offerings around its remaining product set to make it more attractive to corporate accounts.

Michael Brown, Quantum's chairman and chief executive, said the company would head in a similar direction to EMC, acquiring both hardware and software vendors to boost its offerings. It intends to concentrate primarily on selling its DLT and ATL tape backup systems, but will also push its Snap family of network attached storage servers.

"We plan to add breadth and depth to Quantum's product and solutions portfolio in the coming fiscal year, and we have set some aggressive goals for ourselves," added Brown.

"By the end of fiscal 2002, we expect our storage solutions businesses - which currently contribute 30 per cent of total Quantum revenues and have grown 30 per cent year-over-year - to be well on their way to approaching 50 per cent of our total revenues. The bar is set high, but we are ready to deliver," he said.