Rumor: Seagate Buying OCZ

[marcplante]

There is a ***Rumor*** that Seagate is trying to buy out OCZ. (so don't make any misinformed investment decisions).

Hopefully they'll inject some discipline into the manufacturing process and give us another quality SSD competitor.

Though some may complain. I've never had problems with any of the Seagate drives I've used. Certainly seems a step up from OCZ's rep, which seems pretty bad for SSDs

We'll see...

 

[Phynaz]

Rumor, please update your title.

 

[nanaki333]

I appears that Seagate is trying to buy out OCZ.

Hopefully they'll inject some discipline into the manufacturing process and give us another quality SSD competitor.

We'll see...

quality isn't the first thing that comes to mind when i think seagate

 

[samboy]

Well, seems like a match made in heaven from a quality perspective if it happens

 

[thelastjuju]

Well, seems like a match made in heaven from a quality perspective if it happens

My thoughts exactly.

Here's the link

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...-acquisitionbre86i0ta-20120719,0,182764.story

(Reuters) - Shares of OCZ Technology Group Inc spiked as much as 21 percent in early trade on a report that larger rival Seagate Technology Plc has offered to buy out the solid-state hard drive maker.

Fudzilla.com, a hardware industry blog, reported on Thursday that Seagate is considering acquiring OCZ to boost its solid-state drive (SSD) product portfolio. The website said a deal could be announced as early as next week.

 

[Coup27]

This acquisition makes no sense to me at all.

 

[corkyg]

Not a bad rumor - actually a little better than a rumor. Such a move makes a lot of sense for Seagate in looking ahead to the mass storage device market and their future in such a market. Seagate has recently acquired an Israeli comany (Denbits), and they have plenty of cash and resources for more growth in this area. Focus on the conclusion of this article.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/695911-seagate-looking-pretty-solid

And, one can't ignore consensus of investors.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/07/19/ocz-technology-soars-on-report-seagate-might-bid/

 

[dave_the_nerd]

This acquisition makes no sense to me at all.

Well... Samsung sold their HDD business to Seagate to concentrate on SSDs.

Maybe Seagate hired Samsung's consulting firm to help evaluate long terms growth opportunities in the storage industry, and got the same advice Samsung did.

That said, I am currently using an OCZ SSD and a Seagate HDD, so not only am I getting a kick, but I'm also thinking that a future version of the Momentus XT SSD/HDD Hybrid could be pretty darn awesome, if the techs are combined inhouse.


Please resist the need to use 'colorful metaphors' within your posts.


Moderator - Burner27
Memory & Storage
Video Cards & Graphics

 

[mikeymikec]

Well, seems like a match made in heaven from a quality perspective if it happens

Well, the only reason I stopped buying Seagate was because they reduced the warranties to 1 year, which makes me nervous (unless you count retail kits or super-expensive drives). I'd say I've bought about 150 disks in ten years, about 90% of those were Seagate, to my knowledge 5-10% of the 150 have failed (in or out of warranty).

So you've had a bad experience (or two) with Seagate. Once up on a time WD were a lot more popular with OEM builds, so I saw a lot of WD disk failures and very few Seagate failures. Of the WD disks I've bought (very few, approx 10 and only in the last 3 years I guess) the one that failed screws with the percentage of reliable WD disks in my experience somewhat. On the other hand, someone may have been in a similar position to me but mainly bought WD disks and had a similar experience to mine with Seagate disks but with WDs instead.

A friend of mine probably has probably only bought ten hard disks in ten years, max, and stopped buying Seagate after he had a few quick failures.

My point is, perhaps your experience isn't definitive. I'm not saying mine is either. As far as my personal computer is concerned, I haven't had a drive failure (or something that might qualify to be returned on warranty) since the IBM DeathStar around the year 2000.

Back to the topic, OCZ has a bad reputation certainly on these forums. Assuming that's a fairly definitive experience (it might not be though), then Seagate buying a manufacturer with SSD building experience but is having problems with their QA, I suspect Seagate has a lot more experience with doing QA right, so it sounds like a fairly good match based on that logic.

If Seagate really was so terrible, it wouldn't be the only HDD competitor alongside WD.

 

[Coup27]

Well... Samsung sold their HDD business to Seagate to concentrate on SSDs.

Maybe Seagate hired Samsung's consulting firm to help evaluate long terms growth opportunities in the storage industry, and got the same advice Samsung did.

This is completely different.

Samsung had their own HDD division. Samsung also has their own SSD division. Samsung simply sold off their assets in a stagnant rock bottom (at least pre-Thailand) industry to reinvest the money elsewhere.

I understand Seagate's desire to get into the SSD industry, but buying OCZ to achieve it really makes no sense. Seagate's reputation themselves as a HDD manufacturer isn't as good as it used to be and buying OCZ will do nothing to change that. OCZ do not make the NAND, DRAM or controller so the only thing Seagate will be buying is OCZ's "knowledge" and IP to Everest and there are plenty of other SSD companies out there who could provide that without the baggage that OCZ will inevitably bring.

 

[Concillian]

I can see doing it in order to get indilinx. At this point nobody wants to be reliant on Sandforce. They had their chance and muffed it.

Indilinx had some early performance issues, but they never really dropped the ball on reliability like Sandforce has. OCZ's reliability issues are largely tied to the Sandforce issues. Seagate is probably looking for a controller company as much as anything else. I'm guessing they're hunting for talent/experience + IP as much as anything else.

OCZ will get squeezed out of the market if they don't get acquired, they have to be shopping for a buyer right now. The market response to the Seagate rumor (OCZ up over 20%) shows that many people think that selling the company is a good plan.

 

[nanaki333]

I can see doing it in order to get indilinx. At this point nobody wants to be reliant on Sandforce. They had their chance and muffed it.

twice

 

[tweakboy]

Seagate just keep getting worst and worst, first the maxtor deal now OCZ,, both of which are weak and prone to breaking at any time.

 

[Homeles]

Seagate just keep getting worst and worst, first the maxtor deal now OCZ,, both of which are weak and prone to breaking at any time.

When a company A buys company B, company A is in charge. Not the other way around.

Honestly, Seagate's fine. OCZ on the other hand isn't, and I hope that Seagate will turn them around. I don't know if any of you have figured this out yet, but the 7200.11 firmware drives are history. There's nothing wrong with Seagate now.

 

[Hellhammer]

I understand Seagate's desire to get into the SSD industry, but buying OCZ to achieve it really makes no sense.

But when you look at the market, do you see any other viable options? Hynix just bought LAMD and there is no way Seagate has the funds to buy Hynix. LSI (i.e. SandForce) is too expensive too and so is Marvell. OCZ is pretty much the only known company that has their own controller (Barefoot 3 is supposed to be 100% in-house, no more Marvell rebrands) and firmware, and OCZ is still "affordable".

 

[2is]

quality isn't the first thing that comes to mind when i think seagate

Agreed. One of he worst HDD manufacturers buying out one of the worst SSD manufacturers is hardly confidence inspiring.

 

[Meghan54]

...but buying OCZ to achieve it really makes no sense.

I can see doing it in order to get indilinx.

That about sums it up, Coup.

 

[Arachnotronic]

When a company A buys company B, company A is in charge. Not the other way around.

Honestly, Seagate's fine. OCZ on the other hand isn't, and I hope that Seagate will turn them around. I don't know if any of you have figured this out yet, but the 7200.11 firmware drives are history. There's nothing wrong with Seagate now.

Just like how there's nothing wrong with Vertex 4 drives since they're not SandForce POSes. But try getting people to believe that...

 

[Railgun]

quality isn't the first thing that comes to mind when i think seagate

Exactly. I've never had any good experiences with their drives.

When a company A buys company B, company A is in charge. Not the other way around.

That's a very broad generalization. It all depends on the agreements in place. Most boards will not readily give up everything. Certain aspects of operations could easily stay within the realm of control by OCZ. I've gone through two of 'em and can say that the statement is about 70% true.

 

[PowerYoga]

too funny if this is true.

 

[Homeles]

That's a very broad generalization. It all depends on the agreements in place. Most boards will not readily give up everything. Certain aspects of operations could easily stay within the realm of control by OCZ. I've gone through two of 'em and can say that the statement is about 70% true.

What I meant by that is that OCZ isn't going to somehow be at the head of Seagate. Seagate isn't going to somehow go down the drain because of OCZ.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Interesting articles talking about why this acquisition could happen:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/737911-the-ocz-acquisition-rumor-where-there-s-smoke-there-s-fire

http://stechsauce.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/the-circumstantial-case-for-an-ocz-takeover/

http://josephjpeters.com/2012/07/21/theres-a-rumor-theres-rumor-stx-wants-to-buy-ocz/

 

[=Wendy=]

Interesting articles talking about why this acquisition could happen:

Indeed, very interesting reading.
Thanks for the links.

 

[Arachnotronic]

No problem!

 

[bradley]

But when you look at the market, do you see any other viable options? Hynix just bought LAMD and there is no way Seagate has the funds to buy Hynix. LSI (i.e. SandForce) is too expensive too and so is Marvell. OCZ is pretty much the only known company that has their own controller (Barefoot 3 is supposed to be 100% in-house, no more Marvell rebrands) and firmware, and OCZ is still "affordable".

Hey Kristian, I want to say what a welcome and insightful addition you are to Anandtech. You bring enthusiasm back to being an enthusiast, and I really enjoy and value your timely articles.