Seagate completes acquisition of xyratex

Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) has announced it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Xyratex Ltd (NASDAQ: XRTX), a leading provider of data storage technology.

“Exabyte growth is accelerating, and we are building higher capacity drives to address this growth,” said Dave Mosley, President of Operations and Technology at Seagate.  “The time required to properly test these higher capacity drives is increasing dramatically, making it strategically important to have uninterrupted access to world-class test equipment and engineering resources.  The addition of Xyratex helps us fill this important need and considerably streamlines Seagate’s supply and manufacturing chains for our core HDD business.”

Jamie Lerner, President of Cloud Systems and Solutions at Seagate, said, “We are very excited to add Xyratex’s storage systems and high-performance computing businesses to our core offerings.  This will enable Seagate to provide added value to our customers through a broader array of storage solutions, which is particularly important as exabyte growth continues and as cloud-based business models proliferate. We look forward to coupling our expertise with the experience and capabilities of the Xyratex team and working together to accelerate innovation in the months and years to come.”

Seagate expects revenue contribution from this acquisition to be between $500 - $600 million, and for the acquisition to be neutral to earnings per share in its fiscal year 2015, ending July 3, 2015.  All shares of Xyratex are expected to be delisted from the NASDAQ stock market immediately following the closing.

Allen & Company LLC served as financial advisor and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati served as primary legal advisor to Seagate in connection with the transaction.
 

Seagate unveils 4TB Hard disks for Rs.25,000/-

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today introduced Backup Plus FAST portable drive; the world’s first portable 4TB storage device, providing twice the capacity and speed of existing external portable drives. This new Seagate® Backup Plus FAST drive features a superspeed USB 3.0 interface to deliver transfer speeds up to 220MB per second, making it the perfect companion for a field photographer or filmmaker looking to quickly move large files to backup.

“With Backup Plus FAST, Seagate has taken a very mature product category and has delivered innovative enhancements to address the real world challenges of our customers,” said Rajesh Khurana, country manager, India & SAARC, Philippines, Vietnam, Indo-China, Singapore for Seagate Technology. “The performance and capacity of this new portable drive is beyond that of any other external offering to date.  We believe that the Backup Plus FAST drive will be widely adopted by creative professionals as the go-to back up device for the field.”

clip_image006The metal top-case of Seagate Backup Plus FAST drive is a quality sturdy design and is resistant to scratches and fingerprints. It needs no external power supply and is compact enough to fit easily in a camera bag or backpack while delivering the same or higher capacity of today’s desktop drives.  The drive is configured as RAID 0, which stripes the data across both drives increasing the volume capacity and transfer speed.

“Speed and capacity are of the utmost importance in my work which calls for the latest in digital photography and video technologies. When dealing with the large files these devices produce, whether it is a still photo, time-lapse video or 4k video; having high-capacity reliable and fast storage can make the difference between a project succeeding or failing” says Jim Sugar, veteran National Geographic photographer.  “Ingesting, editing, managing, and backing up these files, which are often gigabytes in size, represent the crucial steps that make up my digital workflow.”

“My job depends on how the technology performs, because if the camera, computer and hard drives do not function as expected, either the project will be a failure or the time spent in post-production will be impacted tremendously. Time is valuable to a filmmaker or photographer and anything that can speed up the necessary processes is valuable to me and in the end, the client.”

This new offering also includes the same easy to use backup software that has made the Seagate Backup Plus line up so popular. The Seagate Dashboard software provides an easy one-click backup solution, but can also be set as a scheduled backup up as needed. Additionally, the Dashboard software will back up Facebook and Flickr albums to ensure that even video and photos shared through these networks are backed up and easy to find. Use the Save and Share features to download and upload content from these social network sites. Even all the photos you have been tagged in can be backed up from your social networks to the drive.

The latest update to the Dashboard now also includes a mobile backup application to provide protection for one’s digital data on mobile devices. Install the free Seagate Mobile Backup app on an iOS or Android mobile device to back up all of the pictures and videos from that device to a drive or a cloud service. Back up from mobile devices can also be sent directly to the drive via a WiFi connection while within your network, or utilize cloud services such as Dropbox or Google Drive while on the road.

Pricing and Availability:
The 4TB Seagate Backup Plus FAST portable drive is currently available in stores for an MSRP of INR 25,000.

JAMIE LERNER TO JOIN SEAGATE AS PRESIDENT OF CLOUD SYSTEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) has announced that Jamie Lerner will join the company as President, Cloud Systems and Solutions. Lerner most recently held the position of Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud and Systems Management Technology Group at Cisco Systems.

Lerner has spent nearly two decades in executive management positions in high-tech, primarily focused on enterprise level management software and services. He has a deep technology and business background, founding and successfully growing two technology companies, XUMA, Inc. and CITTIO, Inc. Over the last five years at Cisco, Lerner built the company’s Service Provider and Network Management businesses, ultimately leading to the creation of the company’s expanded cloud and systems management division.

Lerner will join Seagate on March 10 and will report directly to Seagate Chairman and CEO Steve Luczo.

“The transitions happening in cloud computing represent significant changes for the storage industry and we are expanding Seagate’s opportunities by advancing our technology portfolio for greater capacity and efficiency in hyperscale deployments,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate Chairman and CEO. “With Jamie’s substantial expertise in this space, combined with his proven business acumen, we believe he can leverage our unique position as a storage leader and scale our business for new growth initiatives in cloud computing. We are confident Jamie is the right leader to drive this important next chapter for Seagate.”

“Seagate has been delivering innovative technology for decades and over that time has built a highly respected brand in the storage industry,” added Lerner. “I look forward to leading Seagate’s cloud strategy in this exciting time for the company.”

SEAGATE ULTRA MOBILE TO POWER LENOVO YOGA 2 PC

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a worldwide leader in storage solutions, has announced that it is working with Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker, to deliver YOGA 2, a new multimode PC powered by the Seagate® Laptop Ultrathin HDD. Both companies will demo the YOGA 2 multimode PC at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“Seagate has had an ongoing strategic alliance with Lenovo for many years. By delivering the technology that enables their YOGA 2 with the Laptop Ultrathin HDD, we have succeeded in delivering a high-capacity, lightweight laptop that addresses the needs of consumers and commercial users,” said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. “Redefining the laptop and tablet space, this new drive enables consumers to enjoy PC-like storage capacity in a thin and light Ultrabook design.”

Delivering similar power, performance and reliability to what was originally a SSD only device, the Laptop Ultrathin HDD provides up 500GB of storage capacity at a fraction of the cost. The 500GB HDD delivers the highest-capacity available in a small, ultra-thin form factor while supporting over 100,000 photos, 125,000 songs or 62 hours of high-definition video and movies.

“Besides SSD, now we can offer more storage options for our customers with Seagate’s ultra-thin, high-capacity HDD,” said Wentao Yang, Global Procurement VP of Lenovo. “We have extensive collaboration with Seagate across our laptop, desktop, all-in-one and servers, helping deliver innovative products with extreme performance and reliability.”

Leveraging the company’s experience with ultra-portable applications like iPods, MP3 players, and handheld video recorders, the Seagate 2.5-inch Laptop Ultrathin HDD is just 5mm thin while weighing in at a mere 3.3oz— about the same as a light bulb. Its slim, rugged design allows it to be utilized in new emerging applications like convertible and detachable storage.


About Seagate
Seagate is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at seagate.com.

SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY TO ACQUIRE XYRATEX LTD

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in storage solutions, and Xyratex Ltd (NASDAQ: XRTX), a leading provider of data storage technology, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Seagate will acquire all outstanding shares of Xyratex in an all-cash transaction valued at $13.25 per share, or a total of approximately $374 million, including approximately $80 million in cash on Xyratex’s balance sheet as of August 31, 2013. The consideration represents a premium of approximately 27% per share over Xyratex’s stock price at the close of trading on December 20, 2013.

Xyratex has developed a leading hard disk drive (“HDD”) capital test equipment business. The acquisition of this business will further strengthen Seagate’s vertically integrated supply and manufacturing chain for disk drives and ensure uninterrupted access to important capital equipment. The acquisition also expands Seagate’s storage solutions portfolio by adding Xyratex’s industry-leading enterprise data storage systems and high-performance computing business. Seagate will operate this business as a standalone entity and will focus on opportunities to improve and expand the business.

“This is a strategically important acquisition for Seagate as we continue to focus on delivering best-in-class storage solutions for our customers,” said Dave Mosley, President of Operations and Technology at Seagate. “As the average capacity per drive increases to multi-terabytes, the time to test these drives increases dramatically. Therefore, access to world-class test equipment becomes an increasingly strategic capability. As a premier provider of HDD testing equipment, Xyratex is an important partner and we are excited to integrate these important capabilities which will considerably streamline our supply and manufacturing chain for our core HDD business. We are also pleased to acquire Xyratex’s storage systems and high-performance computing business, which provides us additional opportunities to serve our customers with a broader array of storage solutions.”

“Xyratex is very pleased to become a part of Seagate’s industry-leading organization,” said Ernie Sampias, Chief Executive Officer of Xyratex. “Seagate shares our commitment to innovation and the critical role that test plays in providing the best storage products at the lowest possible cost. After a thorough strategic review process in which we evaluated a wide range of alternatives, the Xyratex Board of Directors determined that this all-cash transaction with Seagate maximizes shareholder value through an attractive premium, and also affirms the significant value that our employees have created.”

The transaction has been approved by Xyratex’s Board of Directors and is subject to customary closing conditions, including review by regulatory bodies and approval by Xyratex shareholders. Baker Street Capital, Xyratex’s largest shareholder, has agreed to vote its shares in favor of the transaction. The transaction is currently expected to close in mid-calendar year 2014. Seagate expects to finance the transaction from existing cash balances and the transaction is not subject to any financing conditions.

Seagate currently expects the transaction to be neutral to Seagate’s earnings per share in its fiscal year 2015. Seagate expects positive cash flow immediately following the transaction and expects revenue contribution to be between $500-$600 million in its fiscal year 2015.

Allen & Company LLC served as financial advisor and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati served as primary legal advisor to Seagate in connection with the transaction. Credit Suisse served as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal advisor to Xyratex.



About Seagate
Seagate is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions.

About Xyratex
Xyratex is a leading provider of data storage technology, including modular solutions for the enterprise data storage industry and hard disk drive (HDD) capital equipment for the HDD industry. Xyratex enterprise data storage platforms provide a range of advanced, scalable data storage solutions for the Original Equipment Manufacturer and High Performance Computing communities. As the largest capital equipment supplier to the HDD industry, Xyratex enables disk drive manufacturers and their component suppliers to meet today’s technology and productivity requirements. Xyratex has over 25 years of experience in research and development relating to disk drives, storage systems and manufacturing process technology. Founded in 1994 in an MBO from IBM, and with headquarters in the United Kingdom, Xyratex has an established global base with R&D and operational facilities in North America, Asia and Europe.

Seagate announces new senior Executive Appointments

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ:STX), a world leader in storage solutions, today announced two strategic executive appointments to further Seagate’s effectiveness in delivering its core product technology portfolio, customer engagement and operational excellence.

Dave Mosley, who most recently served as Executive Vice President of Operations and R&D, has been named President, Operations and Technology, responsible for Seagate’s global hard drive, heads and media manufacturing operations, as well as global research and development. Rocky Pimentel, who most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, has been named President, Global Markets and Customers, responsible for Seagate’s global customer engagement, sales, sales operations, product line management, marketing and retail activities. Both will continue to report to Steve Luczo, Chairman and CEO.

“These appointments reflect the significant opportunities in front of Seagate,” said Luczo. “We believe that the trajectory of long-term demand for storage is outpacing supply, and the markets that we serve are both expanding and changing rapidly. Our traditional OEM and distribution customers are addressing important opportunities with new technology offerings and go-to-market capabilities. We are also actively engaging with many new customers directly, especially in the cloud services market and with start-up businesses that are also pursuing innovative technical approaches for their storage infrastructures and lack significant go-to-market capabilities.

“By elevating Dave and Rocky to lead our core product technology, operations and customer engagement, Seagate is even better positioned for continued operational excellence and to further our ability to capitalize on our growing opportunities in the storage marketplace. Additionally, this new alignment of our leadership allows me to focus more on the longer term strategic opportunities for our company, and to increase my efforts around accelerating our mobile and cloud technology strategies. These promotions are well-deserved and we are fortunate to have two executives as capable as Dave and Rocky to step into these important roles.”
 
David Mosley
Since joining Seagate in 1996, Mosley has held a variety of leadership positions, including: executive vice president of sales and marketing; vice president and site management team leader for Seagate’s Longmont, Colorado, operation; senior director for R&D engineering; and he has led Seagate’s emerging products development team. Prior to joining Seagate, Mosley was a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a senior engineer at Micropolis and Conner Peripherals.

Albert “Rocky” Pimentel
Prior to joining Seagate in 2011, Pimentel served on the Company’s Board of Directors and was a member of the early Seagate management team, working with founders Al Shugart and Finis Conner. He also was part of the founding management team at Conner Peripherals. Since that time, his diverse career experience has included COO and CFO at McAfee, senior vice president and CFO at LSI Logic, and senior leadership positions at Glu Mobile, Zone Labs, WebTV Networks and Redpoint Ventures. Pimentel currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Xilinx, Inc., Imperva, Inc. and LifeLock, Inc.

About Seagate
Seagate is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions.Learn more at seagate.com.

Seagate completes private share redemption transaction of 32.7 million shares held by Samsung

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, announced a private share redemption transaction with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in the amount of 32.7 million ordinary shares, representing approximately 9% of Seagate’s shares outstanding as of the end of the fiscal first quarter 2014. Following the transaction, Samsung will continue to own approximately 12.5 million shares of Seagate and Dr. Seh-Woong Jeong, Executive Vice President at the Systems LSI Division of Samsung Electronics will remain on the Seagate Board of Directors.


“We are pleased that Samsung intends to continue to be a long-term strategic shareholder and valued business partner with Seagate. Our success with the Samsung hard disk drive products that we acquired has exceeded our expectations and we are very encouraged with our joint product development for enterprise solid state drives. We look forward to continuing to benefit from Dr. Jeong’s counsel and guidance as part of our Board of Directors and we are very optimistic about the future of our flash technology partnership,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.

 Luczo continued, “Returning value to shareholders is also a top priority for Seagate and investing in our own company is one of our greatest opportunities today. Given the strength of our balance sheet and expected cash flow from operations, we remain committed to our share redemption and dividend plan. With this transaction, we are on track to meet our stated goal of returning approximately 70% of operating cash flow to shareholders this fiscal year while at the same time we continue to make strategic investments in our business to extend our leadership in cloud, mobile and open source storage technology.”



“Bringing value to the market and consumers has been the primary goal of our relationship with Seagate and we are pleased with our partnership’s success. Samsung looks forward to continuing our strategic ties with Seagate and delivering technology solutions for cloud and mobile applications,” said Oh-hyun Kwon, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics.

About Seagate

Seagate is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at seagate.com.

 About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. 

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in technology, opening new possibilities for people everywhere. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, LTE systems, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 270,000 people across 79 countries with annual sales of US$187.8 billion. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com. 

Seagate to demo its revolutionary HAMR storage technology at CEATEC-2013

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ:STX), a world leader in storage solutions, today announced that it will be demonstrating its next generation  heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology at CEATEC 2013. Pushing the boundaries of magnetic recording, Seagate’s revolutionary HAMR technology is poised to power an astounding 20 Terabyte drive by as early as 2020.

“The world is generating an astronomical amount of data annually and that data needs to be stored. We are approaching the limits of today's recording technology and with HAMR technology, Seagate is on track to continue to increase areal density delivering hard drives with the lowest cost per gigabyte and reaching capacities of 20TB by 2020,” said Mark Re, Seagate’s chief technology officer.

Currently shipping leading-edge shingled magnetic recording technology (SMR), Seagate will continue to push the limits of storage capacities with HAMR in an effort to fulfill the insatiable global demand for storage fueled by cloud and mobile usage. Critical for continued improvement in areal density, HAMR increases storage capacity by heating the medium with a laser-generated beam at the precise spot where data bits are being recorded. When heated, the medium becomes easier to write and the rapid subsequent cooling stabilizes the written data. The result of this heat-assisted recording is a dramatic increase in the recorded density.

HAMR, combined with self-ordered magnetic arrays of iron-platinum particles, is expected to break the limit of magnetic recording by more than a factor of 100 to ultimately deliver storage densities as great as 50 terabits per square inch. To put this in perspective, a digital library of all books written in the world would be approximately 400 TB – meaning that in the very near future conceivably all such books could be stored on as few as 20 HAMR drives.

Seagate’s next-generation HAMR technology will be incorporated into a 2.5-inch enterprise drive, spinning at 10K RPM. Designed with enterprise in mind, HAMR fueled drives will be ideal in a blade server environment.

Seagate HAMR demonstrations will take place, during CEATEC 2013 in Tokyo, between October 1-5, 2013 during normal operating trade show hours.


About Seagate
Seagate is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at seagate.com.

Seagate joins industry leaders to form new storage association

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ:STX), a world leader in storage solutions, today announced that it has co-founded the Storage Products Association (SPA), a new forum designed to educate consumers and professionals alike about the critical role hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) technologies plays in today’s digital age.

Newly formed, the Storage Product Association’s mission is to help storage manufacturers and consumers alike understand the pivotal role that storage offerings such as HDD and SSHD technologies play in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments.

“The market for storage continues to grow at an explosive rate with estimates now predicting that by 2020 demand will reach 6 zettabytes annually,” said Jeff Burke, Seagate vice president of strategic marketing and research.  “As the purveyor of the broadest storage portfolio in the industry, Seagate is committed to sharing the benefits of storage technologies and the right storage mix for consumer and enterprise needs. We are pleased to join SPA as we view the association as an excellent forum for educating the public at large.”

In addition to informing customers, partners, members and users about current storage offerings, SPA will strive to provide balanced and informative information to the marketplace about cutting-edge storage technologies such as shingle magnetic recording and heat-assisted magnetic recording and the role these new technologies may serve in the future.

Making its debut this week at the Flash Memory Summit 2013, SPA founding members will participate together in a panel titled, “Solid State Hybrid Drives Help Meet Today’s Storage Requirements” to discuss the pivotal role of hard disk drives and solid state hybrid drives. The panel discussion will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center at 8:30am in Santa Clara, California. John Rydning, IDC’s research vice president, for hard drives and semiconductors, will moderate the panel.

About the Storage Product Association
The Storage Products Association (SPA) helps storage manufacturers and users understand and support current and future storage needs, including the key role of hard disk drives and solid state hybrid drives, in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments. For more information, go to www.storage-products-association.org and on Twitter, @storageproducts.


About Seagate
Seagate is a world leader in hard disk drives, solid-state hybrid disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at www.Seagate.com. Follow Seagate on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and subscribe to our blog.