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| Type | Public (NASDAQ: STX) |
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| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters |  Scotts Valley, California, United States |
| Key people | Alan Shugart, Founder Bill Watkins, CEO Stephen J. Luczo, Chairman of the Board Bob Whitmore, CTO, Dave Wickersham (President and COO), Pat O'Malley (CFO), Brian Dexheimer (Division President, Consumer Solutions) |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Products | Designs and manufactures storage solutions for the enterprise, desktop, mobile computing, consumer and retail markets. |
| Market cap | $4.2 billion USD1 |
| Revenue | $12.7 billion USD (fiscal year 2008)2 |
| Employees | 54,0002 |
| Website | www.seagate.com |
Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) is the world's largest manufacturer of hard drives and storage solutions. The company was founded in 1979 and is based in Scotts Valley, California. Seagate's hard drives are used in a variety of computers, from servers, desktops, and laptops, to other consumer devices, such as digital video recorders, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and in portable media players and automotive navigation systems. In addition, Seagate designs highly rugged 2.5-inch hard drives optimized for extreme temperatures, shock and vibration - - ideal for automotive navigation systems, military and aerospace equipment and video-surveillance applications.
Contents |
History
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008) |
Early history
Seagate Technology was founded (under the name "Shugart Technology") by Alan Shugart and Finis Conner. Their first product (released in 1980) was the ST-506, the first hard disc to fit the 5.25-inch form factor of the (by then famous) Shugart "mini-floppy" drive. The hard disc was a hit, and was later released in a 10-megabyte version, the ST-412.
In the early 1980s, Seagate secured a contract as a major OEM supplier for the IBM XT, IBM's first personal computer to contain a hard disc. The volumes were large as IBM was the dominant supplier of PCs at the time and fueled Seagate's early growth. As IBM began purchasing from other suppliers such as Miniscribe, IMI and others, Seagate responded by establishing a powerful distribution channel that supplied hard discs for the millions of PCs hungry for hard disc storage.
Finis Conner left Seagate in early 1985 and founded Conner Peripherals, which originally specialized in small-form-factor drives for portable computers. Conner Peripherals also entered the tape drive business with its purchase of Archive Corporation. After ten years as an independent company, Conner rejoined Seagate in a 1996 merger.
In 1989, facing increased competition and margin pressure, Seagate turned a challenging financial situation into success by making an important and strategic acquisition of Control Data's MPI/Imprimis (CDC) disc storage division. Seagate management had always believed that vertical integration of key components such as heads and discs was crucial in the face of competition from deep-pocketed competitors such as IBM and certain Japanese suppliers. This move gave Seagate access to CDC's voice-coil and disk-manufacturing patents, and a competitive advanced head-development capability. As well, the purchase provided access to a high-end server customer base and the first 5,400 RPM drives on the market (the CDC Elite series). Seagate quickly began to leverage vertical integration across its entire product line and once again became a dominant force in the business.
1990s–2000s
In 1992, Seagate introduced the Barracuda, the industry's first hard disk with a 7200 RPM spindle speed. The company followed this with the Cheetah (the first 10,000 RPM disk) in 1996 and the X15 (15,000 RPM) in 2000. Seagate also introduced the Medalist Pro 7200 range, the first ATA disk with a 7200 RPM spindle, in 1997.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Seagate management began to acquire storage software companies, believing that the relentless pressure on disc drive margins could be cushioned by diversification into software. The investment paid off as Seagate eventually sold its software division to Veritas and became one of the largest Veritas shareholders. Veritas stock soared and Seagate was able to convert its investment into cash for its shareholders. In 2003, Seagate re-entered the notebook market with its 2.5-inch Momentus hard drive. In 2005, Seagate started an innovation called the "Pocket Hard Drive," a palm-sized external-storage device that could hold 5 gigabytes of data. Just three years later, a compact Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive could store 250 gigabytes.
On December 21, 2005, Seagate announced plans to acquire Maxtor. The all-stock deal was worth $1.9 billion. The transaction was completed in May 2006. With the Maxtor acquisition, Seagate significantly increased its scale and expanded its line of retail storage products, tapping the fast-growing home and small-business markets. Seagate's Maxtor OneTouch and FreeAgent line of external hard drives, with storage capacities of up to 1 terabyte, are used to store, share, protect and back up digital content like photos, videos, games and music.
Seagate also moved to address another fast-growing market trend, in which corporate data center managers, faced with soaring energy costs, sought lower-power computing solutions. On June 2, 2008, Seagate announced a 2.5-inch enterprise solution, the Savvio 10K.3 hard drive, which consumed 70 percent less power than traditional 3.5-inch drives and offered 300 gigabytes of capacity. Market researcher IDC predicts that such small form factor enterprise drives will outnumber 3.5-inch enterprise shipments by 2010.
Data security became another top concern among IT managers in the decade. Seagate responded in September 2007 with a 1-terabyte desktop hard drive that uses government-grade encryption technology (Full Disc Encryption or FDE) to prevent unauthorized access to data on lost or stolen hard drives or systems. Along with its Barracuda FDE hard drive, Seagate also announced a 250-gigabyte, 2.5-inch hard drive, the Momentus 5400.4, the world's first notebook drive with built-in encryption.
Corporate affairs
Seagate was traded for most of its life as a public company under the symbol “SGAT” on the NASDAQ system, then moved to the NYSE system under the symbol “SEG” in the 1990s. In 2000, the company was taken private by an investment group composed of Seagate management, Silver Lake Partners, Texas Pacific Group and others in a three-way merger-spinoff with Veritas Software; Veritas merged with Seagate, which was bought by the investment group. Veritas was then immediately spun off to shareholders, gaining rights to Seagate Software Network and Storage Management Group (with products such as Backup Exec), as well as Seagate's shares in SanDisk and Dragon Systems. Seagate Software Information Management Group was renamed Crystal Decisions in May 2001. Seagate re-entered the public market in December 2002 on the NYSE as "STX."
Research and development
Seagate's research and development efforts span the globe, with R&D in the U.S., Asia and Northern Ireland. On September 11, 2006, Seagate won the Technology Design Award for its "Hard-disc recording technology that dramatically increases the amount of information that can be stored on a single disc." This technology is called "Perpendicular Recording".3
Antecedents
- Conner Peripherals
- CDC Imprimis
- Maxtor
- MiniScribe
- Quantum Corp's hard drive division
- Digital Equipment Corporation's hard drive division
Timeline of notable events
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- 1979 – Seagate founded as disc drive manufacturer.
- 1980 – Builds industry's first 5.25-inch hard drive.
- 1989 – Seagate acquires Imprimis Technology - high-capacity drives and components.
- November 1992 – Introduces the first 7,200-RPM disc drive.
- November 1992 – First to market with shock-sensing technology for 2.5-inch disc drives.
- May 1993 – Ships 50 millionth disc drive.
- February 1996 – Merges with Conner Peripherals to form world's largest independent hard-drive manufacturer.
- October 1996 – Introduces the first 10,000-RPM drive, the Cheetah family.
- October 1997 – Introduces world's first Fibre Channel interface disc drive.
- October 1997 – Introduces first 7,200-RPM, Ultra-ATA drive for desktop computers.
- March 1998 – Produces 1 billionth magnetic recording head.
- August 1998 - Seagate Research is established in Pittsburgh, PA-USA.
- April 1999 – Seagate ships its 250 millionth disc drive.
- February 2000 – Introduces world's first 15,000-RPM disc drive, the Cheetah X15.
- November 2000 – Unveils the world's highest-capacity disc drive, the Barracuda 180-GB.
- March 2001 – Second-generation Cheetah X15 introduced, one year ahead of the competition.
- October 2001 – Microsoft Xbox game console ships with Seagate disc drives.
- May 2002 – Introduces Cheetah 15K.3, its third-generation 15,000-RPM drive, one year ahead of the competition.
- November 2002 – Demonstrates perpendicular-recording areal density of 100 gigabits per square inch.
- November 2002 – Delivers industry's first Serial ATA disc drive, the Barracuda ATA V.
- December 2002 – Re-enters the public market (NYSE: STX).
- June 2003 – Re-enters the notebook market with Momentus 2.5-inch disc drive.
- September 2003 – Announces highest areal density at 100-GB per platter.
- February 2004 – Announces Savvio, the industry's first 2.5-inch enterprise disc drive.
- June 2004 – Launches 12 new products aimed at applications like MP3 players, DVRs, notebook computers, PCs, servers and data centers.
- March 2005 – Ships 10 millionth 15,000-RPM disc drive.
- September 2005 - Acquires Mirra, Inc.
- January 2006 – Named 2006 "Company of the Year" by Forbes Magazine.4
- February 2006 – Introduces world's first 12-GB 1-inch disc drive.
- April 2006 – Introduces world's first 750-GB hard drive.
- May 2006 – Seagate acquires Maxtor Corporation.
- October 2007 - Ships world's first hybrid hard drive.
- March 2007 - Seagate acquires EVault.
- March 2007 – Seagate ships world's first laptop drives with Full Disc Encryption technology.5
- March 2008 - Seagate acquires MetaLINCS.
- April 2008 – Seagate becomes the first to ship 1 billion hard drives.6
- July 10, 2008 - Seagate announces world's first 1.5-TB hard drive.7
Locations
- United States
- Scotts Valley, California
- Fremont, California (Recording Media Operations)
- Sunnyvale, California (Design)
- Longmont, Colorado (Design)
- Shrewsbury, Massachusetts (The Seagate Product and Technology Development Center)
- Bloomington, Minnesota (Recording Heads Operation)
- Shakopee, Minnesota (Product and Technology Development Center)
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (customer technical support)
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Research and Development Center)
- Europe
- Northern Ireland: Springtown (Recording Heads); Limavady (Substrates)
- Paris, France (Sales)
- Munich, Germany (Sales)
- Amsterdam, Netherlands (Services and Customer Support)
- Moscow, Russia (Sales, Field Applications Engineering)
- Asia-Pacific
- Singapore: Woodlands (Recording Media Operations); Science Park (Disk Drive Design); Ang Mo Kio (Disk Drive Operations)
- Thailand: Teparuk (Head Stack, Head Gimbal Assembly); Korat (Slider, Head Assembly, Head Gimbal Assembly)
- Malaysia: Penang (Recording Heads); Senai (Printed Circuit Boards); Johor (Substrates Manufacturing)
- Japan: Tokyo (Sales and Marketing)
- China: Wuxi (Hard Drive Manufacturing); Suzhou (Head Stack, Disk Drive Assembly); Beijing (Product Marketing)
- India: Delhi (Product Marketing)
Competitors
- Western Digital
- Samsung Group
- Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
- Fujitsu
- Toshiba
- Buffalo Technology
- STEC, Inc.
- LaCie
- SimpleTech
- Fabrik
References
- ^ "Company Profile for Seagate Technology (STX)". Retrieved on 2008-10-22.
- ^ a b Seagate Technology – Corporate Profile
- ^ "Technology Innovation Winners and Runners Up 2006". Wall Street Journal (2006-09-11). Retrieved on 2006-09-12.
- ^ "America's Best Managed Companies according to Forbes" (2006-01-09).
- ^ Seagate's encrypted hard drives Debut. March 12, 2007.
- ^ Seagate Ships One-billionth Hard Drive. March 12, 2007.
- ^ Seagate Announces World's First 1.5TB Hard Drive. July 10, 2008
External links
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