Seagate Reportedly Balked at Western Digital's Takeover Talks
Seagate Reportedly Balked at Western Digital's Takeover Talks
Posted 12/06/2010 at 6:33am
| by Paul Lilly
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In some alternate universe, perhaps Western Digital is able to acquire Seagate and instantly more than double its hard drive sales. But in this one, Seagate ultimately scoffed at WD's takeover proposal, or so that's the story "two people with knowledge of the matter" say, according to a Bloomberg report.
The sources say WD was willing to fork over anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent mor than TPG Capital, another firm that unsuccessfully tried to acquire Seagate. When news of WD's proposal hit the news wire, Seagate's stock surged 7.2 percent. So why didn't Seagate bite?
Both companies declined to comment, but the general consensus is that such a mega-deal would have sparked an antitrust investigation. On top of that, some management personnel would likely have lost their jobs.
Seagate's market value currently sits at about $6.9 billion. Western Digital, despite reporting lower sales than Seagate, is worth about $8 billion.
Image Credit: Seagate
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eastbayrae
December 06, 2010 at 5:01pm
Thank God this didn't go through. WD drives are total shit. I have had 8 go bad in the past three years alone. I guess if they do end up with Seagate I will switch to Hitachi.
Synux
December 06, 2010 at 8:53am
The healthy competition is only going to be there if the companies remain separate. I imagine these two will be the last ones standing in the rotational media fight to the death before SSDs rule the earth.
In other news, I have the exact opposite experience of the other poster with respect to drive failures. It is funny how those statistics classes come back to mind and I see all these standard distributions in my head.
DogPatch1149
December 06, 2010 at 9:02am
I've had the exact opposite of big_montana as well - five Seagates failed in the past year, all of them less than three years old, but I have WDs that are five years old plus that are still humming along. Hell, one of them is a six year old Caviar 80GB that still hasn't developed a bad sector or slowed down at all.
I definitely agree with the bit about Maxtor, though. Almost as bad as the notorious Hitachi DeathStar...er...DeskStar.
praetor_alpha
December 06, 2010 at 3:52pm
Sometimes for kicks, I go on Newegg, and read hard drive reviews. Can't tell how many times someone's said "Excellent drive. I always buy from manufacturer X" followed by "This drive failed in a week, manu X sucks, I will always buy manu Y from now on." Then I go to on of manu Y's drives, and see it the other way around.
big_montana
December 06, 2010 at 7:46am
I'm glad this deal fell through, aside form teh alck of competition and increased prices aspect. I just do not think WD drives are as reliable as Seageates. All the drives that I have fialed over the last three years have been WD's (the newest being 6 months old). I have 4 year old Seagates that still run fine, and none of my newer WD's are still alive. WD is the new Maxtor.
themohawkadmin
December 06, 2010 at 2:18pm
And I've had three Seagate drives die in a short period of time, and yet all of my WD drives (about ten of them) all are running well, the oldest being 6 years old. So I guess YMMV.
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