The prediction is that HDD in all portables will reach EOL this year; HDD life in all PCs will end by next year. Well, HDD as main stream in data centers or clouds could survive a little bit longer, let's guess, say three years or sooner!
So for the folks still working in HDD industry, it 's good time now to get prepared and plan ahead accordingly if you have a family to support !
Good luck to all of you !
Fairies cannot be found at the bottom of a garden. They are at the top of the well. With pixie dust.
With 3D NAND ramping up as we speak (Micron suggests 50% of its bit will be shipped in 3D NAND for the latter half of this year), NAND will become cheaper, more reliable and more power saving. Next year could be even worse for HDD.
I hope the end comes soon, so I can see the fat cats getting RIF. Am already RIF'ed...so watching from the sidelines now.
Anybody who believes that also beleives that fairies can be found at the bottom of the garden. Nobody is suggesting that the market for storage is not going to increase. It will ...but not in the HDD format. Customers want reliability and speed. Not spinning rust. HDD is technology of the past. Why would customers buy a horse and cart when they can buy a Ferrari. The only people suggesting HDD has a future is the upper management in Seagate. Clinging on to the cliff top with their finger nails. When the Ferrari comes down in price to match that horse and cart I'm afraid it's game over for large HDD producers. They may bounce along in a niche HDD market for a few more years but nowhere near the size they are now (Unless they have their own SSD ).
It's declining but the prediction is HDD market will be around 20 bil by 2020..
Go ahead and google Tim Cook compensation, and then Steve Luczo. Steve gets paid more than the CEO of Apple, the biggest tech company in the world? WTF is wrong with this picture?
Will there be layoffs every quarter?
The company under the present leadership and post Shugart has been used purely as a platform for financial engineering and milking value. Luczo is an investment banker, he is not a technology visionary such as Musk for example. All the technology acquisitions have been failures. Yet, the guy is paid more than Tim Cook.
The problem not only with the declining of HDD market. People simply afraid of Seagate HDD quality. People who are serious about their data not going to get Seagate HDD regardless how cheap it goes. Seagate will drop much faster than competitors. More layoffs = more quality issues. Employees just going to sit around and wait for severance packages.
I remember a couple of years ago Steve Luczo running around the stage with his microphone acting like an Amway salesman telling us all that the demand for HDD storage was going to be so great that we didn't have enough capacity in our clean rooms to cope. Try telling that now to the poor saps that are getting rifted from sites around the world. The foresight of the senior management in this company is beyond a joke. If they had spent more time and effort investing in future technology that everyone knew was comming instead of ensuring share holders got paid big dividends we probably wouldn't be in the mess we are in now. The recently launched revamped Barracuda range is the last throw of the dice. Akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.