STX is looking heavily to invest in Flash. Watch for the acquisition before the year is out. Spend for M&A operations in 2015 over 900m almost 7m in Dot Hill. note that there was 1000 in this sweep, and that the statement is that the layoff to be complete by December. STX is carefully avoiding WARN notice. There WILL be another deep layoff by Mid December of approximately the same size. Merry Xmas and Happy new year to all STX employees! there will also within 12 months be another acquisition and a selloff of a recently acquisition that is falling short of expectations (even though it is plodding along at the same clip it was before the Acquisition) Go Cloud Go Flash... :/
11 replies (most recent on top)
In pure performance? HDDs are spinning rust. Capacity Seagate sees expansion in a way that is quite smart. It's going to take the HDDs they have while working on long term SSD markets. Beyond this; they can make storage arrays, racks and anything else that competitors make (HP (Hates People), EMC(Evil Machine Corporation), NetApp(NetCrap), Dell and others); and then can sell it at a cheaper cost.
This is a huge margin for profits in a lot of ways. This allows the company both both manufacture and make everything from start to finish (like Samsung) to then offer a product at a similar or less cost than a competitor while having higher profits. In comparison, EMC/NetApp and others buy all Seagate products (like Xyratex and HDDs) and then have a huge markup. Paying 50-100 dollars for a HDD then charging 4k to 5k per HDD is a huge markup. This is enterprise storage and Seagate can make it all and sell it to customers. Companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix make their own operating systems for data redundancies. In this case, future capacity is driven by large amounts of data but more about cost. The rise of JBODs is a factor which drives costs down (this is further realized by Microsoft Server having the ability to map any storage and make data redundant across all of the other locations making RAID pointless - like ReFS). The fact that long term technolotgy is changing is a realization for everyone. Samsung's ahead of the curve with 3D SSDs. Samsung made a 16 TB SSD; going to be super expensive but blows capacity capabilities of HDDs away. This is the future and Seagate realizes that other long term solutions need to be a factor. In this same case; data forcasters and others are idiots! They don't know how much Seagate makes from HDDs as a total and make stuff up. Besides EVault (which is a profitable cloud service); Xyratex (which makes enterprise=profitable business) and others; the future is SSDs for manufacturing but HDDs becoming more akin to Tape; it can last long term but is being replaced by a newer tech. Seagate will diversify and survive. The real worry is for competitors (like EMC/NetApp) who buy our hardware and sell a huge markup that end customers are seeing no need to pay for. Yes it's crazy times but look at the total percentages and the company; tons of companies have had layoffs and buybacks this year (which is very widespread). To everyone else who is leaving; I wish you a great career and off to better and higher paying salaries. To existing Seagate or new people under this company: stay current and up to date like a mercenary and if worse comes to worse; your resume will be ready and you'll have jobs in a few weeks flat (by having searches/subscriptions to apply for new jobs). Side note: if they bring in Indian teams to replace you; you can make all internal information hidden then have site wars! Throwing them under the bus and never training them...
An article issued on 9/16 by Jonas Elmerraji, a senior analyst of Agora Financial in Baltimore mentions Seagate as one of five dividend paying stocks that wants to give you a raise. In his analysis he notes that 95% of current revenues come from hard disk drives, but then states that according to the firm (Seagate) in 2019, 80% of shipments will be SSD's. Either Seagate be selling a sh**-ton of SSD's or HDD's will be shrinking dramatically. The people who left Seagate in September weren't so much laid off as given a head start.
Besides EVault, the acquisition of Xyratex, LSI also happened in recent time. Which company will be spinoff?
http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Software_Developer/Salary
Median salary for a Software Developer in India is 347,423 rupees, that's $5236.21 USD.
Seems India is still pretty cheap to me.
If you want to get a clear picture of Seagate's direction (at least when it comes to software development) look at the measly selection of jobs in North America vs. ~350 jobs in India. It's all publicly available on Seagate's website. The idea is that outsourcing of the software development will save them dollars and cents, although Seagate is a "rookie" player compared with companies that have been struggling to outsource software development to India. Additionally, INDIA IS NO LONGER CHEAP!
@Anonymous151509 see my second post. THIS layoff will be completed by December, that doesn't mean additional layoffs all the way into December. Learn how it works please, thanks!
Also, don't say that "the press statement says December" because they didn't instantly layoff all 1000 employees (for various reasons.) The manager can set the end of employment date and work with employees to document and transition their workload. Also, in some cases they have to give longer notice (depending on the regional or local laws.) So the December date is just for this layoff of 1000 employees to be fully completed. Now, it could be that there will be more layoffs, just not in my function or maybe not company wide, which is why I am asking for more information, if you have any. Thanks!
Maybe the Wall Street Journal?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/seagate-technology-to-cut-more-than-1-000-jobs-1441883403
"The cost restructuring plan is expected to be largely completed by year-end"
EVault is the recent acquisition that is being either cut or will be a spinoff. Management told us that there will be no more layoffs for now, so I'm wondering where you got your information about possible December cuts. Reliable source or just rumor?
Any mention of who might be the buyer of the "recent acquisition.... LSI???" ?
sell off of a recent acquisition.... LSI???