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Originally Posted by From the Site
Interview with Teh Ban Seng, Seagate vice president of Asia Pacific Sales and Marketing
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Jimmy Hsu, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DigiTimes.com [Wednesday 9 June 2004]
With the announcement of 11 new hard drive models to be launched in the second half of this year, disk drive giant Seagate Technology is looking to diversify its product selection by expanding further into the server, desktop PC, notebook and consumer electronics markets.
DigiTimes interviewed Seagate vice president of Asia Pacific Sales and Marketing Teh Ban Seng about new products, capacity expansions and future prospects. The following are excerpts from the interview conducted in Chinese.
Q: In which area is the company focusing on, to meet all of the new hard disk applications appearing in the market?
A: We currently make products for a wide range of applications including enterprise servers, desktop PCs, notebooks and consumer electronics. Demand for PCs is seeing a worldwide slowdown with the exception of the markets in China and India.
Q: Could you tell us something about Seagate�s second-half product lineup?
A: For enterprise servers, we are going to unveil a 500 GB, 15,000rpm, 2.5-inch SCSI hard drive. We will also introduce a 10,000rpm serial attached SCSI (SAS) drive.
In the PC market, the Barracuda series have been updated to an eighth-generation (8G) serial ATA (SATA) drive with storage capacities ranging from 250 to 420 GB, from the current 80-250 GB. We plan to launch external 1-inch, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives with USB 2.0, in sizes from 5GB to 400 GB, in the third quarter.
The new Momentus series for notebooks will be released in the third quarter- with speeds of 7200rpms and capacities of 60-100 GB. Also, we will launch a 2.5-inch product line with 20-100 GB of hard disk space.
In addition, there will be some available products for portable applications and consumer electronics, like our new drive for DVD recorders that will support from 250-400 GB. And, we have been in development of new one-inch drives as well, and expect to begin volume production in July or August. For this product, we are at an early stage and still taking customer orders.
Q: Maxtor has extended its production capacity to a new plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (China). Will Seagate follow suit and set up any new plants for capacity expansion?
A: Total hard drive shipments hit 18 million units in the first quarter, with monthly capacity of at least six million. Production lines from both plants in Singapore and Wuxi, Jiangsu Province (China) are still able to meet market demand. However, we aren�t ruling out capacity expansion in the future as market demand continues to grow.
Q: How does Seagate plan to distinguish itself from its competitors?
A: Recently, much of the competition vied to increase their SATA market shares by cutting prices; Seagate was able to maintain about half of the global market. One of our strategies is shortening time-to-market, in which we work to optimize production efficiency and lower equipment costs. In addition, we are continuously developing our vertically integrated supply chain in order to strengthen our position.
Q: What are your plans for the portable application market as portable products become mainstream?
A: Seagate is targeting the personal electronics market, in particular, MP3 players, PDAs and digital still cameras by offering a range of one-inch drives. Results from our product diversification strategy should deliver in the second half.
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2004-06-23, 05:41 PM
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