Its probably obvious to most people here, but when you constantly RIF staff, what does it say about the future prospects of Seagate? This is going beyond simply weeding out the non-productive staff, it suggests that business will continue to decline and the staff isn't needed. The Cloud Computing effort appears to be a bust, and HAMR seems to be nothing but a story designed to fool tech-ignorant investors in love with a dividend yield. Can anyone here make a positive case for the future of Seagate, assuming its not simply an expression of sarcasm?
3 replies (most recent on top)
Ok. Let me tell you what is going on since your executives will not. SSD has taken out 15K & 10K enterprise HDD as well as PC HDD. When SSD's are deployed in all flash arrays in combination with de-duplication technology, the SSD capacity need is 1/3 that of HDD to serve the same data need. So SSD cost/gb only needs to get to 3X more than HDD to have total cost parity just on capacity. Throw in lower power consumption, better reliability, and faster performance and we see 100% SSD storage is already CHEAPER than HDD RIGHT NOW. Seagate SSD is limited by NAND supply and faces too many larger competitors with in house fabs. It can never compete, so that's out. It doesn't look like our cloud solutions have sufficient demand either to make up for this. Thus, the only major revenue making product Seagate can produce going into the future are the nearline high cap HDD. Think 10+TB. Well, it turns out we aren't doing well on the high cap drives right now with WD getting 80% market share in large markets. So, as Mr. Ponytail has told people all over who want to listen, if HAMR fails, Seagate is finished as a company with current strategic position we have been put into. So, to answer your question, a HAMR miracle is actually required within 2 years time (all the while NAND prices drop will accelerate), or SEAGATE IS FINISHED as a large international company. Turns out HAMR might have a while longer to go to mature than that. Make your own conclusion.
Seagate have played all their cards and all that is left for them to do is to try and bluff their way through each fiscal year .Miles behind competitors,Bad decisions,an arrogant CEO,ancient machines that they cant get parts for,a total lack of respect and empathy from managers to employees and a workforce where moral is at an all time low.I cant see any positives.
No. Certainly the future of spinning hard drives is in decline and Seagate haven't gotten into solid state as much as they should have. There is still a vast need for storage so if Seagate can get their strategy right there is hope. Unfortunately at present that doesn't appear to be the case. WD have the advantage at present.