[qi:027] The hard disk drive is the Rodney Dangerfield of the technology industry: can’t get no respect. Despite being the key ingredient of everything from fat iPods to notebook computers and digital video recorders, the HDD business is treated with faint disdain.
Bill Watkins, the colorful and plain-talking chief executive office of Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate Technology (SEG) knows it all too well, and is doing his best to overcome the commodity challenge. As a guest of the debut episode of The GigaOM Show he lamented the kamikaze tactics of his overseas rivals and lack of profits in the business.
He acknowledged that everyone could learn from Apple (AAPL) and offer a better user experience as a differentiator for the commodity technology products. The next time I saw him, he was busy showing off his company’s efforts at a recent meet-and-greet event for the media.
Seagate is launching a major refresh of its consumer disk drives (some up to a terabyte (TB) in capacity). including a 60 GB drive for the D.A.V.E. (Digital Audio Video Experience) technology platform.
D.A.V.E is supposed to work in tandem with mobile devices via Bluetooth or WiFi giving additional capacity to everything from mobile phones, video cameras and even portable media players. Watkins argues this new platform will allow mobile devices to get capacity at an affordable price point.
However, the most exciting aspect of the new technology refresh launched by Seagate are two drives: one designed specifically for digital video recorders and another for surveillance gear. “Most people confuse that drive is a drive,” said Watkins. “But the environments they work in are different.”
This is an opportunity for Seagate, he claims, because they can optimize the software (inside the drives), and tweak the drive components to meet “application-specific needs.” DVR drives, for instance, need to be quiet and have to be able to perform in an environment where the system is giving off a lot of heat. The surveillance specific drives, Watkins points out, have different needs, such as ability to handle multiple video streams and high capacities.
Over next few years, he believes that the disk drive industry is going to have to get more specific in how it puts together drives. Seagate is committing a lot of R&D dollars towards this end, and has built up an army of software coders whose job is to optimize the firmware software inside the drives to meet specific demands of a device or an application.
With the volumes of digital devices – DVRs and media centers, for example – hitting millions, it is now economically viable for Seagate (and others) to do semi-bespoke drives. And maybe that is what it would take for the industry to get some respect.
What Seagate Announced:
* Maxtor OneTouch family of drives get a new look.
* The first 1TB desktop PC hard drive with hardware based full-disc encryption (FDE)
* Seagate D.A.V.E.™ technology platform with up to 60GB of wireless storage
* 250GB 2.5-inch notebook hard drive for rugged mobile computing
* 1TB hard drive for High Definition DVRs and home media centers
* 1TB hard drive for surveillance DVRs, and
* A 450GB 15K-rpm Enterprise drive
thats really interesting news . but can component company which is essentially make something to be embedded build a brand differentiators like this ? I think they are Trying to pull a “Intel Inside ” Act .
Idea is no doubt good . it will be interesting to see how they execute on this .
It’s actually a brand inside like Intel’s stunning marketing stroke of genius, as well as brand outside. Seagate’s D.A.V.E. for example, is a branded product off the shelf. In addition, other forms of external storage such as network drives designed for media distribution throughout a consumer’s home, is another example where strong branding strategies will be required. Western Digital is actually the leader today in external storage and have achieved that spot by strong branding (My Book). We are going to see more and more of this in the industry. All of the HDD makers, will eventually face this challenge if they are to avoid obscurity.
I just finished re-reading the innovator’s dilemma where the author goes on and on about the disk drive industry and how each successive “application or type of use” has gone onto kill the previous generation of disk drive makers.
Since, the book came out 10 years ago, i thought they would have done “application specific devices” many many years ago.
Interestingly, christenson talks about how disk drives dont introduce new technology even though they have it because they think it requires scale to become economically viable. meanwhile, a start up that is very happy about even a minimal volume gets so much expertise that by the time the market matures to become interesting the legacy guys cant catch up…
This is what was going through my head when I read “With the volumes of digital devices – DVRs and media centers, for example – hitting millions, it is now economically viable….”
Interestingly, the same dynamics are being played out in the electric car market vis-a-vis- tesla and GM’s new hybrid/electric car…
Actually it’s a fantastic ideas for both OEM buyers (who likely will either get performance boosts or cost reductions – or both)from specialized drives – and consumers who have specialized needs – though the marketing will need to be crisp so they don’t confuse consumers.
Reminds me of Howard Moskowitz’s work – which is summarized in this great and funny presentation by Malcom Gladwell at TED http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/20
Interesting stuff — I have heard before that S/w industry is going for customisation but H/W is something new and refreshing.
Seagate has been recognized for years by DVR hackers as the HD of choice. Now that folks like DirecTV are providing HD-DVR’s with an eSATA port for external storage – right out of the box – it’s an excellent opportunity for Seagate to leap ahead.
I hope their appreciation of AAPL-style consumer marketing grows to match technical expertise.
A small correction: Seagate’s ticker symbol is STX, not SEG.
Otherwise, I’m glad you posted on this topic! Seagate is a huge player in the tech industry ($11b in revenue) but gets relatively little media coverage.
It seems like there are obvious plays that they have neglected to pursue. Building hardware accelerated encryption into the disk is one of them (looks like Seagate is now tackling this). Another is building a small RAID array in a single 3.5″ form-factor. Depending on how the RAID were configured, the same hardware could be sold as ultrareliable or ultraperformance. Again, to some degree this is what Watkin’s is now talking about, but haven’t such things been obvious to many people for a long time? A guess there was a forest for the trees problem in that industry.