Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins says a price war in thehard drive business industry is a possibility. Seagate is the world's largesthard drive manufacturer and are in direct competition with companies such as Hitachi,Samsung and Toshiba. On Wednesday, Watkins said "If pricing doesn'tdropfor us, it'll be an upside." Seagate is expecting stiff pricecutting fromits competitors through into 2007.Seagate believesthat despite the aggressive price cutting from competitors, theonlygains they are receiving are minor. Watkins indicated that theircompetitors are getting volume units and share, but it's lousy share.Watkinssaid that Seagate gains more share because of product quality,reliability andsupport rather than heavy price cutting. Watkins alsonoted that Seagate'scompetitors are cutting prices so much, it erodesinto the profitability of itscompetitors.Seagate acquired its largest competitor, Maxtor, earlier this year andannounced that it would cut the company in half. Seagate mentioned that despitethe job cuts,it would keep many of Maxtor's enterprise level product linesandservices. Seagate also made several announcements of its own so farthisyear, including a 300GB, 15,000 RPM, perpendicular Cheetah and 1TB NAS productsunder the Maxtor brand name.Atthe moment, Seagate is one of the few companies that are notunderinvestigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SECiscurrently investigating more than 80 companies for stock-optionmanipulationsand back-dating practices that give huge financial gainsto executive levelemployees. Watkins indicated that he was confidentabout his company's businesspractices, saying "we have a very rigorousstock-option grant program. It'ssuch a rigorous process. We feelconfident." News source: DailyTech Read full story...
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