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Seagate

Seagate Technology NYSE: STX is a major manufacturer of hard drives, founded in 1979 and based in Scotts Valley, California. The company is registered in the Cayman Islands. Their hard drives are used in a variety of computers, from servers, desktops, and laptops to other consumer devices such as PVRs, the Microsoft Xbox and the Creative Zen line of digital audio players. Seagate is the oldest independent hard disk maker still in operation.

History

Seagate Technology was founded by Alan Shugart (back from a sabbatical after getting pushed out of Shugart Associates) and Finis Conner; their first product (released in 1980) was the ST-506, the first hard drive to fit the 5.25" form factor of the (by then famous) Shugart "mini-floppy" drive. The drive was a hit, and was later released in a 10-megabyte version, the ST-412.

Through the 1980s, Seagate mainly sold simple drives that were derivatives of (and improvements upon) the original ST-506 design; the ST-225 20MB drive and ST-251 40 MB drive were the biggest sellers of this age, though they also sold faster drives that used voice coil technology. Because of this, Seagate drives were sometimes referred to as cheap and unreliable, a reputation not entirely undeserved because of the 225's and 251's usage of stepper motors to position the heads. However, Seagate drives were usually held in better regard than their competition (mainly MiniScribe, but also Microscience, Rodime, Tandon and Kalok). Seagate finally abandoned stepper motor designs in the early 1990s; the ST351A/X, an oddball 40 MB drive that could run on either an ATA or XT Attachment bus, was their last product to use a stepper.

Finis Conner left Seagate in early 1985. After one failed attempt to start his own company, and also briefly serving as CEO at CMI, in 1986 he founded Conner Peripherals, which originally specialised in small-form-factor drives for portable computers. Conner Peripherals also entered the tape drive business with their purchase of Archive Corporation. After ten years on their own, Conner rejoined Seagate in a 1996 merger.

In 1989, Seagate entered the high-end drive market with their purchase of Control Data's MPI/Imprimis disk storage division. This gave them access to CDC's voice coil and disk-manufacturing patents, as well as the first 5400 RPM drives on the market (the CDC Elite series). In 1992, Seagate introduced the Barracuda, the industry's first hard drive with a 7200 RPM spindle speed. They followed this with the Cheetah (the first 10,000 RPM drive) in 1996 and the X15 (15,000 RPM) in 2000. They also introduced the Medalist Pro 7200 range, the first ATA drives with a 7200 RPM spindle, in 1997. As of 2005, Seagate started an innovation called the "pocket hard drive". Seagate has the highest areal density (number of bits stored per square inch) in the industry and it leverages off this technological edge to make faster disk drives.

December 21st 2005, Seagate confirmed the acquisition of rival HDD firm Maxtor. The all-stock deal is worth USD 1.9 billion. The firms said the combination will be 10-20% accretive on a cash EPS basis after the first full year of combined operations. The combined company will save around USD 300 million in operating expenses after the first full year of integration, Seagate said. The transaction will be completed in the second half of next year. If the deal falls apart, Maxtor will pick up USD 300 million. The two firms will continue as separate companies until the close of the deal.