It was obvious then and it's even more obvious now - Seagate should have suspended their dividend 2 years ago when WDC dropped their dividend. This clearly was a strategic blunder. Seagate management has been managing the company as though there would never be a downturn, but in data storage there is alway a slow down right around the corner. Shugart said it best, "success is fragile."
I've been reading through the forum and ran into this. I couldn't agree more with @1wkb+1mhMlEeQ.