Seagate has a rough quarter

by on April 19, 2007

I was reading up on news from this week and saw that my sponsor, Seagate, had a pretty rough quarter (profit was down 22%). They are in the middle of a hard drive price war.

Thomas Hawk, in a post about the importance of backing your stuff up, notes that you can get a 750GB drive now for about $230 at Amazon. Don’t miss Thomas’ post, or the comments about how people are backing their stuff up now.

After Seagate reported its earnings John Furrier sat down with Seagate’s CEO, Bill Watkins, where he went into detail about the bad quarter they had.

That’s a great way to take bad news on: do it on video and take it head on.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/04/PID_010943/Podtech_SEAGATE_WATKINS_4_16_07.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/seagate/2736/exclusive-earnings-interview-with-ceo-of-seagate-bill-watkins-bizarre-industry-pricing&totalTime=708000&breadcrumb=c453470f-9945-4f49-86fd-cb115e874ade]

  • 750mb for $230? Pricing IS getting crazy. :) GB right?
  • Goebbels
    "750mb drive now for about $230 at Amazon."

    Umm....

    Really, Scoble, I'll give you a hug and then you can go take a nap.
  • Ooooopppssss. Yeah, GB. I need a nap.
  • met
    Hey, Does anyone know if the new Seagate FreeAgent Go (160gb) would be compatible with a Powerbook (using only one USB)?
    I came to know of the powerbook's underpowered (compared to other laptops) USB drives after buying a WesternDigital 160gig. :(
  • met
    I was talking about the Powerbook G4 15". I've heard the 12" Powerbooks have more power in their USB ports.
  • Hum... not 100% sure, but the hard drive manufacturer should focus more and more on NAS. It seems the mass market is going there. But at first sight, only the network companies seem to be aware of that (SMC, D-Link and so on).
    In fact, the shops sell these NAS drives with HDD bundles where they have the highest profit.
  • Christopher Coulter
    The Scoble Curse claims it's next victim (really it's another Blade Runner-level curse), but long term Seagate should be ok...

    1. Secure dominant position in OEM/ODM, when it's a commodity market. How? Deal making. Deal making. This for that, that for this, throw in extras. Enterprise Services as norm. Less Dell, more HP Channel style.
    2. If can't win on price, win on features. Have two lines, one for price games, other for R&D features.
    3. Secure consumer markets, by being sexy and cool. People pay more for sexy. Price pressures will kill unless have that hook. FreeAgent was halfway cool, but Passports and MyBook's are still mainstream hits.

    Seagate is casserole chaos, fueled with pure optimism. They need an overall focus, not the multi-levels of OEM and ODMs, not one-off oddballs, not old Seagate mixed in with new Seagate and Maxtor out on this LOST-like island, which they half bought to kill. Some overall unified strategy is needed...
  • LayZ
    Furrier sits down with Watkins? Man! Could the Seagate/PodTech relationship get any closer? When is the co-branding going to start?
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