Seagate rumoured to buy OCZ [20 July 2012]

FlameHead · 21st July 2012, 6:55 AM

OCZ appears to be looking at a sale and the big rumour is it will be seagate.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/28...cz-acquisition

I think with the marketing muscle, manufacturing, finances and distribution network of Seagate available to OCZ, there would be huge value for both parties. And for consumers, cheaper and more widely available SSDs.

I've had OCZ products in all of my computers for 7 years now at least. I can't lie, I've got a small fortune in OCZ stock and getting sick of the stocks up and down performance, wouldn't mind some seagate shares instead :P

congoh · 21st July 2012, 11:43 AM

No, it will mean less competition and higher prices.

Recent drop in prices was an attempt by the big boys to weed out the small fish.

Just like HDD market (which is in fact a duopoly) same thing can happen with SSD market.

Linkin · 21st July 2012, 11:56 AM

Piss off, first it was WD/Sea buying up all the HDD manufacturers, now they'll be consuming the SSD companies to keep their mega corporations alive...

IPfreely · 21st July 2012, 12:05 PM

less competition = higher prices. HDD prices are still 2x higher than they were 12 months ago. Yeah, yeah we know factories were damaged during the Thai floods but they are back to full production. What's their excuse?

SSD prices have been plunging in the last 6 months. If HDD manufacturers start buying SSD companies out, those price drops will stall.

CM96 · 21st July 2012, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linkin

Piss off, first it was WD/Sea buying up all the HDD manufacturers, now they'll be consuming the SSD companies to keep their mega corporations alive...

I'm pretty much going with this.

I'm willing to bet that within 10 years, the exact same thing that happened to the HDD market is going to happen to the SSD market. During the 90's there were dozens of HDD manufacturers, now there's what? Three?* Take a look at the list of SSD manufacturers and take a wild guess at how many will still be producing drives in 5 or 10 years time.

*Yes I know there were a lot of bankruptcies/abandonments.

FlameHead · 21st July 2012, 3:50 PM

I don't think that just because they have a duopoly in HDDs that they can extend that to SSDs.

There is simply no way to corner the market with most of the components available off the shelf. Also, there are big players that they cannot buy ie. intel

The only way they can really win, is buy helping OCZ do what they have been doing in the last 3 years.

CM96 · 21st July 2012, 9:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlameHead

I don't think that just because they have a duopoly in HDDs that they can extend that to SSDs.

There is simply no way to corner the market with most of the components available off the shelf. Also, there are big players that they cannot buy ie. intel

Ah, never underestimate the offer of cash and/or shares. Legitimate business deals and acquisitions right up to under the table deals, gentlemen's agreements, and bribes - anything a company will do to get a larger market share (and therefore more $$) they will do. Not that I'm accusing the big two of any wrongdoing, of course.

Also Re; Large corporations, I refer more to them selling SSD/storage divisions rather than the whole company.

Quote:

The only way they can really win is by helping OCZ do what they have been doing in the last 3 years.

Indeed.

mtma · 21st July 2012, 9:42 PM

The way I see it Seagate are mostly doing this to buy into the branding, not so much anything to do with technology. It will be interesting to see if they will try to develop their own SSD controller using their design pipelines or keep using Sandforce and the like.

FlameHead · 21st July 2012, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtma

The way I see it Seagate are mostly doing this to buy into the branding, not so much anything to do with technology. It will be interesting to see if they will try to develop their own SSD controller using their design pipelines or keep using Sandforce and the like.

OCZ bought Indilinx last year and are using their own in house controllers in the vertex4 and octane series.

21st July 2012, 6:55 AM	#1
FlameHead Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,593	Seagate rumoured to buy OCZ [20 July 2012] OCZ appears to be looking at a sale and the big rumour is it will be seagate. http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/28...cz-acquisition I think with the marketing muscle, manufacturing, finances and distribution network of Seagate available to OCZ, there would be huge value for both parties. And for consumers, cheaper and more widely available SSDs. I've had OCZ products in all of my computers for 7 years now at least. I can't lie, I've got a small fortune in OCZ stock and getting sick of the stocks up and down performance, wouldn't mind some seagate shares instead :P

21st July 2012, 11:43 AM	#2
congoh Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Melbourne, not too far from Monash Uni. Posts: 3,755	No, it will mean less competition and higher prices. Recent drop in prices was an attempt by the big boys to weed out the small fish. Just like HDD market (which is in fact a duopoly) same thing can happen with SSD market.

21st July 2012, 12:05 PM	#4
IPfreely Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 2,898	less competition = higher prices. HDD prices are still 2x higher than they were 12 months ago. Yeah, yeah we know factories were damaged during the Thai floods but they are back to full production. What's their excuse? SSD prices have been plunging in the last 6 months. If HDD manufacturers start buying SSD companies out, those price drops will stall.

21st July 2012, 3:50 PM	#6
FlameHead Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,593	I don't think that just because they have a duopoly in HDDs that they can extend that to SSDs. There is simply no way to corner the market with most of the components available off the shelf. Also, there are big players that they cannot buy ie. intel The only way they can really win, is buy helping OCZ do what they have been doing in the last 3 years.

21st July 2012, 9:42 PM	#8
mtma Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2,596	The way I see it Seagate are mostly doing this to buy into the branding, not so much anything to do with technology. It will be interesting to see if they will try to develop their own SSD controller using their design pipelines or keep using Sandforce and the like.