Seagate to Roll Out
Eleven New Products
Seagate Technology, the world's largest maker of computer disk-drives, wants to extend its reach to new corners of the highly competitive industry.
Seagate next week will disclose 11 new products, including its first aimed at consumer hand-held devices, such as portable-music players and digital cameras. Officials said the unprecedented series of announcements was intended to demonstrate the breadth of Seagate's technological expertise.
"It puts Seagate in the position of having the broadest products and solutions in the industry, ever" said Jeff Loebbaka, a vice president of marketing. He said the new products would give Seagate, Scotts Valley, Calif., entries covering 95% of the $22 billion annual disk-drive business, up from 70% now.
Mr. Loebbaka said the products also demonstrate how the disk-drive market is fracturing into distinct segments serving corporate data centers, traditional desktop personal computers, laptop PCs, and consumer-entertainment devices, including game-players, video recorders and handhelds. Some of the new products won't be commercially available until early next year.
The biggest departure for Seagate will be a new one-inch diameter drive aimed at portable music players. The drives will hold up to 5 gigabytes of information, or the equivalent of 2,500 songs, said Jennifer Bradfield, a product-marketing director.
Until now, Seagate hasn't made drives smaller than the 2.5-inch models used in laptop computers. But the company is trying to tap into fast-growing consumer markets. Seagate officials said market researchers expect as many as 20 million one-inch drives to be sold next year, up from an estimated eight million this year. Competitors in the one-inch market will include Japan's Hitachi Ltd., and two newcomers, Cornice Inc., Longmont, Colo., and China's GS Magicstor.
For other consumer markets, Seagate is introducing a one-inch drive for digital cameras, and a higher-capacity disk for personal-video recorders, which can hold up to 400 hours of analog TV programs.
The other new products are aimed at PCs, laptops and corporate computer storage.
Seagate has been struggling financially in recent months, plagued by excess inventory and plunging prices. First-quarter net income fell 9%, and officials last week announced plans to eliminate nearly 3,000 jobs by the end of the year.
希捷技术公司将推出11款新产品
全球最大的电脑硬盘生产商希捷技术公司(Seagate Technology)希望在这一高度竞争的产业中不断开拓新的领域。
希捷技术公司将于6月13日当周发布11项新产品，包括该公司首次针对像便携式音乐播放机和数码相机这样的消费者手持设备而推出的新产品。
希捷技术公司管理人士称，此次空前地推出多系列的新产品旨在展示公司技术专长的覆盖面。
该公司负责市场营销的副总裁Jeff Loebbaka称，这使得希捷技术公司在行业中占据具有最广泛产品和解决方案的地位。Loebbaka称，新产品的推出将使得公司在每年销售额为220亿美元的硬盘市场上的占有率由70%提升至95%。
Leobbaka称，此次新产品的展示还显示出硬盘市场如何清晰细分为各个不同的服务于企业数据中心、传统的个人桌面电脑、笔记本电脑、以及包括游戏机、录像机、手持设备在内的消费者娱乐设备的领域。部分新产品要到明年年初才能进行商业化销售。
产品市场营销负责人Jennifer Bradfield称，此次希捷技术公司推出最重要的产品为针对便携式音乐播发机而推出的新型直径为1英寸硬盘。该款硬盘容量为5G，相当于可存储2,500首歌曲。
到目前为止，希捷技术公司还未生产过用于笔记本电脑的小于2.5英寸的硬盘。但是该公司正试图涉足这一快速增长的消费市场。希捷技术公司管理人士称，市场研究者预计明年最多能够售出2,000万块1英寸硬盘，远高于今年所预期的800万块。在1英寸硬盘市场上，竞争者有日本的日立公司(Hitachi Ltd.)以及两家新进入者总部位于科罗拉多州朗蒙特的Cornice Inc.和中国的南方汇通微硬盘科技股份有限公司(GS Magicstor)。
对于其他消费者市场，希捷技术公司推出了用于数码相机的1英寸硬盘，以及用于个人录像机可容纳400小时模拟视频节目的高容量磁盘。其他新产品则面向个人电脑、笔记本电脑、和企业电脑存储设备。
近几个月，希捷技术公司财务方面遇到一些困难，主要受库存过多和价格下跌的影响。该公司第一财政季度净利润下降9%，且管理人士于6月2日宣布计划在今年年底之前裁减近3,000名员工。
