News

posted on 13 March 2008 05:03

The Consumer Solutions division is comprised of the former Seagate Branded Solutions (SBS) business unit dedicated to delivering branded storage products under the Seagate and Maxtor brands, along with the company’s CE business unit.

The CE business unit currently serves customers who design and distribute consumer electronics products such as game consoles, personal media players, digital video recorders and other home media devices. Within the new combined organization, the CE business will remain under the direct management of general manager Pat King, who will also lead branded sales and marketing activities.

Bill Watkins, Seagate CEO, said of the new division: “The home storage market is expected to grow tenfold in the next five years and represents an increasingly significant opportunity for Seagate. By combining the branded and CE business units we leverage our strength in both areas to deliver a consolidated vision and innovative integrated storage solutions designed to accommodate the rapidly escalating requirements of digital content storage, protection, expansion and organization in the home. In addition, we believe there are secondary benefits that will allow us to optimize cost and process efficiency while offering greater scale and consistency in product development, and increase coordination and leverage in sales and marketing."

In another move, Dave Wickersham, Seagate's president and COO, will assume responsibility for Seagate's Enterprise Compute business unit under general manager Sherman Black's management; the Personal Compute business unit led by general manager Mike Wingert; and the New Business Initiatives/Advanced Technology business unit led by general manager Phil Pollok.

About this change Watkins said: “The Enterprise and Personal Compute business units share common DNA in the technical innovation around capacity, performance, power consumption and other customer requirements. I believe that a closer and more formal alignment between these business units and the core Design, Development, Operations, and Quality organizations reporting in to Dave will facilitate faster communication, faster prioritization, and faster decision making, further benefiting how we execute in these critical markets.”

This perhaps recognises that the technology differences between PC disks and enterprise drives are not that great and that there are substantial overlaps between them

[Phil Robson, news editor.]