Tags: Enterprise storage, data storage, Joe Rorke, Rorke Data, media storage

Seagate, IBM, and LSI have been working to make changes in how data is protected in enterprise Data Centers. Today Seagate announced it is making available the world’s first self-encrypting hard drive for data centers. For more information go to:
fdesecurityleaders.com

Tags: Tivoli, Bob Cancilla, data center, enterprise, FDE, Full Disk Encryption, Seagate, security IBM, self-encrypting

Tags: enterprise data security, Phil Bullinger, Engenio, data center, LSI, Phil Bullinger, Security, self-encrypting, storage system

In this first of three podcasts, PodTech’s Michael Johnson speaks with Sherman Black, senior vice president and general manager of the enterprise compute business at Seagate. Black explains how Full Disk Encryption (FDE) is crucial for enterprise data storage security, as all drives eventually leave the data center, whether for repair, retirement, or maintenance. For more information go to:
fdesecurityleaders.com

Tags: Sherman Black, data center, enterprise, FDE, Full Disk Encryption, Seagate, self-encrypting

Tags: seagate, bill watkins, ces, bloghaus, cesbloghaus

Tags: CES, green screen, Intel, Belkin, game pad, Fata1ity, Frag Dolls, Bloghaus

Tags: CES 2008, ShowStoppers, Bloghaus, Robert Scoble, Seagate, Bill Watkins

Tags: Bloghaus, CES 2008, Seagate, Tom Foremski, Warner Crocker, Marc Canter

We’ll be back at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Suite #6601 - Spa Tower.

Check out the mashup of CES 2007 BlogHaus in this post.

More info can be found at:
www.CESBlogHaus.com

A place for bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers, and other online media creators to meet, have some food, relax, and share the day’s news at the Consumer Electronics Show — CES. We’ll have the best bandwidth in Las Vegas plus last year we had 700 of the world’s best bloggers, podcasters and journalists come through our doors.

Please note that the BlogHaus is only open to bloggers, podcasters, and journalists who have RSVP’d and are on our guest list.

Sponsored by Seagate, our favorite storage company, and hosted by PodTech.

Schedule?

Starting Sunday, January 6 - BlogHaus Open from 4pm to 2am
4pm BlogHaus Opens!
6pm Bill Gates Keynote
10pm Seagate One Touch Giveaway with Robert Scoble
10pm Seagate “Dave” Demo

Monday, January 7 - BlogHaus Open from 7am to 2am
6pm-9pm Showstoppers
9:30pm Seagate Execs Arrive
10pm Seagate One Touch Giveaway with Robert Scoble

Tuesday, January 8 - BlogHaus Open from 7am to 2am
8-10pm Frag Dolls
10pm Seagate One Touch Giveaway with Robert Scoble

Wednesday, January 9 - BlogHaus Open from 7am to 2am
6:30pm Extreme HD Demo
10pm Seagate One Touch Giveaway with Robert Scoble

Thursday, January 10 - BlogHaus Open from 7am to 12pm
12pm BlogHaus Closes

Tags: CES, CES 2008, Consumer Electronics Show, BlogHaus, Seagate, Bellagio, Las Vegas, bloggers, podcasters, press

Tags: Seagate, Brian Dexheimer

Tags: Marc Jourlait, Seagate, hybrid hard drives, ReadyDrive, Momentus

Watkins talks candidly about the new Terabyte drive lines and the company’s strategy as new technologies like flash come to bear on the market.

Tags: Seagate, Bill Watkins, Terabyte drive

Tags: hard drive, digital lifestyles, high-capacity, storage, Seagate, Marc Jourlait, Terabyte, Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2

Watch the PodTech exclusive video podcast to hear directly from Bill Watkins on Seagate’s quarterly results and ongoing outlook.

Bill Watkins talks candidly about their quarterly results and he sees an industry that is growing into all things digital. Relating to this past quarter Bill comments on the pricing strategies of the competition. He sees what he calls “bizarre pricing’ by his competitors who are willing to lose money just to stay competitive. Seagate is known for their operational efficiencies so Watkins is very confident that Seagate will prevail. He says that they need to be smarter.

Seagate recently completed the acquisition of Maxtor and rolled out a new consumer line of drives. I have been really impressed with Seagate’s recent moves. They remain competitive with their products and have leadership in their technology. With everyone moving to HD and embedding digital in the lives, I expect that storage companies will continue to be part of user’s lives.

Tags: Seagate, Bill Watkins, Maxtor, storage

Tags: Seagate, Digital Audio Video Experience, D.A.V.E

Tags: Seagate, Consumer Electronics Show, Rob Pait

Tags: David Burks, Seagate

Transcript:
Host: John Furrier - PodTech
Guest: Bill Watkins - Seagate

John Furrier - PodTech
We are here with Bill Watkins, the CEO of Seagate for the quarterly earnings. Congratulations, I guess some big numbers. Tell us a little bit some of the things that went on, came off CES, great launch there, new consumer brand. Last quarter numbers were different, we talked about that. Tell us, what happened this quarter?

Bill Watkins – Seagate
Well, again I think it really was an outstanding quarter and outstanding in all levels of the company. As we looked at the quarter, I think from our introduction of new products, yield improvement in cost savings, the ending or finishing up, if you will, of the Maxtor integration on that merger that got completed. I think that in certain parts of desktop market pricing was a little bit better than we thought, but net-net it was just across the board, company wide people executing little a bit better than planned. So, we end up beating the guy in this place - that’s for sure.

John Furrier - PodTech
So, you beat the guys. Let’s talk numbers. What were the numbers?

Bill Watkins – Seagate
Well, we came in $3 billion of revenue, which is the first time…

John Furrier - PodTech
Huge.

Bill Watkins – Seagate
For the first time, we’ve ever done $3 billion as a storage company and again you think about that stuff. That’s probably 30-40% on an annual basis up. So, again very, very great attraction of the products as you saw on CES, where the new products come out the consumer retailed it almost 200 million in the retail, 180 and 190 retails. So, again I think it was across the Board, it was just a great quarter. We obviously had in the gaming section a big quarter in gaming for the Christmas rush. So, again it was three billion of revenue.

John Furrier - PodTech
So, the Maxtor thing is complete.

Bill Watkins – Seagate
Yeah, we’ve really finished the whole integration of Maxtor. We currently have approximately 200,000 drivers left to sell, but all the manufacturing is done, all the restructuring, the layouts are pretty much finished and what will remain will trick out this quarter.

John Furrier - PodTech
So, we were at Seagate booth at CES we had the Bloghaus, with all the bloggers, which is great, a lot of fun, but those all the new products were out there. Talk about the new stuff that’s coming out.

Bill Watkins – Seagate
Well, again I think what’s excited about being Seagate and being as a part of any storage company today, is this onslaught of video applications content we moved around and what we saw at CES, was Seagate’s newest product rollout, is really to take advantage of all this content being moved electronically around. So, we opened up with the whole new backup that drives that. That not only backup, your data allows you to accessing your world, it allows you to synchronizing with all your devices, so immediately if you backup of song, video, it goes to your devices, whether it’s a video iPod et cetera, or whatever. It allows you access those backup data.

We also launched a whole group of products that are mobile products, which give you same functionality, but allow you to take it into your hand and go and so you can download onto one of your mobile external devices all your settings, your PC, your favorite IP sections, et cetera, take that with you and go. Wherever you’ve got a keyboard and screen, you’ve got an instant computer, with all your personal settings. So, again it’s all about giving you mobility, giving you security, giving you ways of backing up and accessing that data and then synchronizing that data through all these multiple devices that you use.

John Furrier - PodTech
The consumer finds it sexier too. I mean, they were really nice designed products. At the Bloghaus, everyone was talking about it the lights and it looks cool. Talk about like the new products that are coming. Any new cooler drives…

Bill Watkins – Seagate
Well, again we think — we’re going to see a whole list of products. We started with a launch — I think we’re going to talk about — we’ve new external drives that are going to be wireless that allow you access these handheld devices phones, our storage capabilities allow you to back and load more data in a handheld device. We’re going to have a whole new rollout of our Maxtor brand coming out, that is really based on reliability and backup, but again we’re going to launch some new products. We’ve gone to kind of new concept here, where we’re bringing in a frog designed it actually did the same, we’re bringing in people who we think have expertise in consumer designs and they’re helping us design.

At Seagate, we’re very focused on the technology and we much more looking at industrial applications, so again sort of creative ideas and things like that. We’ve reached out to those people that do a great job and Frog (Inaudible) has done some stuff for us, but again it’s really bringing in a whole new sort of coolness to hard drives. Again, like I said this before John, we’ve always been kind of like in Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain. No one knew about us and it didn’t matter, we weren’t cool.

Today, we’re not brought in then forefront, you see them out there, they’re utilized, they’re enabling you to move this content without storage device you cannot move this content electronically. So, it’s really changed, the face of company is changed, where we going as direction and is really made this (Inaudible) exciting place to be.

John Furrier - PodTech
They’re all just fundamental, almost like a microprocessor was in original PC, you had to have it and now people are embedding in their lives. Just quick back on the revenue, three billion that’s huge number. You said storage company has never done that before. You blew away earnings; talk about the outlook from a numbers perspective, also Maxtor is fully integrated perhaps just coming out at CES we’re seeing that. What’s the outlook for next quarter and the quarter after?

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Well can — we are doing something kind of usual, usually coming off in December quarter, our business is somewhat cyclical and ideally at Christmas — there is so much storage bought for Christmas whether it is in gaming, DVR, set-top boxes et cetera, PCs, notebooks. And so, historically you tend to have a 10% down quarter coming off of December in the March quarter. We had actually given a forecast for the March quarter very different than that, what we are saying is revenue will be flat at three billion. We’ll improve gross margins and earnings will be in the $0.55 or $0.60 range, which would be a tremendous again, over and proven again.

So, the reason for this is, that the Maxtor products are behind us and so this would be the first quarter where we actually 100% manufacturing, if you will, the Seagate product lines. We’ve got new 1.8 inch drives that now we’ve announced and now launching, we are in fact qualifying, we’ll start to see revenue and earnings this quarter from those programs.

We have a very new two-and-a-half inch 10,000 RPM, and 15,000 RPM, which in fact is the fastest drive in the world for the enterprise market that we are getting tremendous acceptance on so. Again, we are announcing really, actually we’re saying, “We’ve got a whole revenue of three billion in our March quarter,” which is probably 10-15% above what historically would be. And we are going to grow earnings to that $0.55 to $0.60 range. Again, in a down quarter, but again a lot of the things in work that the teams have been doing are really show down and show up.

John Furrier - PodTech
That’s great. Actually storage is growing like crazy in everyone’s life, you guys have great traction. Talk about the leadership from Seagate, in terms of in the marketplace, obviously have the technology leadership, talk about that and then talk about how you guys are going to be competing in the consumer area?

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Well, again as we think about, what’s critical to us at Seagate, it’s has really taken this technology leadership and transferring that into product leadership and in cost leadership. We think that — I think historically a lot of companies tried to be a technology leader, they tried to be a product leader or tried to be a cost leader. What we think is critical for our business, is really fitting all three things take your technology, but, it’s not enough, just to not to be a technology, you’ve got to turn into product leadership, and it’s just not enough to just be the product leader, you’ve got to have cost leadership there.

So, we think with our vertical integration strategies, our tremendous investments and how we platform those investments that allows us to really access technology, and bring it to market to cheaper than anybody else, just this tremendous advantage. And again that’s how — I think right now, over the t third of every drive in the world, the Seagate drive, and we obviously intend to improve on it.

John Furrier - PodTech
Tell, about the Seagate brand, changing — you mentioned some the changes, leadership is obviously there, how do you want people to know the Seagate brand in the market?

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Well, I think — obviously we think about it from a consumer application and again I think to some extent it’s a same principle to OEM or Dell. You want to trust us, I mean as we think about — it’s one thing to put your data on a hard drive or your spreadsheet and that implies a certain amount of confidence or liability et cetera, but when you put your pictures, your files, your music, your video, your home pictures, I mean these are priceless things, and I think what’s important for us, that not only we developed the products and the services for you, we have to deliver a product from a reliability that you trust us, you are trusting us or myself, well trusting is the most important things in life.

So, as we start looking at consumer branding, we are going after that sort of attitude that and making maybe real life how important is that back it up, put it on reliable person or reliable company that’s going to value that and take care of that data, to that data is not $5 or $10 or $9.99 that’s you and your life and your most important things.

John Furrier - PodTech
How about the macro market conditions out there for your growth and leadership out there, what are the key things that you think about?

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Well again, as we think about it, we think is about getting content electronic distributed. And again we — anytime we move a song, a video or anything electronically, it creates an ecosystem that you need to have a storage at the enterprise level, where that content is held, and it’s delivered to your home. You need a storage device at your home to receive it, and then you move it your hand where you’re going to need a storage device, and then normally you’re going to move it to your car. And then everywhere along that cycle you need to back it up.

So, just the idea, or the behavior of moving content electronically, create six are seven drives or storage systems force. Sometimes, it’s going to be a flash in the hand, but again most that is going to be a hard drive, and so we get the benefit. More content is moved, whether it’s through the Internet, through your PCs et cetera. It created tremendous ecosystem, where we get to play it all every areas of those markets.

John Furrier - PodTech
We are here with Bill Watkins, the CEO of Seagate. Sum up for me the quarter that you just did and then the next quarter coming forward in your words.

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Well, again I think it’s very easy, to kind of excited about a quarter or whatever, I think that what — if I was to look at this, this quarter, next quarter, what you see is the opportunity. And it’s not of whatever we satisfied with $0.58 in March, or satisfy the fact we hit three billion. It’s the opportunity set is out there. And if we execute as a company, we can be in a dominating position in this industry. We can’t be a very large storage company; point-billion, those type of numbers are not impossible for us. The opportunity sets out there, we need to continue our execution.

John Furrier - PodTech
Storage of the center of the universe and people’s lives, great opportunity, you’ve blown away the number three billion in a quarter, blown away estimates, lot of leaderships, congratulations and thanks for the Podcast.

Bill Watkins - Seagate
Yeah, still more to come. Thanks.

Copyright ©2006 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Privacy policy

Tags: John Furrier, Seagate, Bill Watkins, Maxtor

Click here for transcript.

Tags: Consumer Electronics Show, Seagate, Diana Cartwright, Microsoft, Dennis Moulton, Microsoft Vista

Tags: Jim Druckrey, Seagate, Consumer Electronics Show

Transcript:
Host: Michael Johnson – PodTech
Guest: John van Bronkhorst – Seagate

Michael Johnson - PodTech
This is Michael Johnson and we are here at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, here in the Seagate/PodTech BlogHaus. We are here with John van Bronkhorst who is the Executive Director of Seagate Branded Solutions, welcome to the Podcast.

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Thanks very much, I’m happy to be here.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now, you’ve got some exciting products here. I’ve just, actually, been introduced to a whole new line of Seagate products which are rolling out here at CES. Tell us a little bit about this new family and what’s different about this particular line?

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Well, Seagate for years has provided storage and capacity and we are now – we are the world’s leading disk drive manufacturer. For years we’ve had a retail presence that’s putting disk drives in boxes and selling capacity points. Last year, Seagate bought Maxtor Corporation. All of a sudden we had two brands selling pretty much the same thing, gigabytes in a box with backup solutions. Maxtor had a really good brand presence in the marketplace, known as the backup data security and protection brand.

So, we are leaving it that way, so we’re using this opportunity today here at CES to launch a new brand strategy for Seagate, which is all about you. It’s about you and your creativity and the freedom to access your data and use your data anytime anywhere. So, we’ve brought up this entire new product line, it’s called Seagate Free Agent; it ranges from a 1 inch 12 gigabyte product up to a 2.5 inch product that goes from 80-160 gigabytes, all the way up to the Free Agent pro-product, which is a 3.5 inch desktop product, it goes all the way to 750 gigabytes. We have different software feature sets between the portable products and the desktop products; we’ve got a fantastic new look and feel. They look different, they feel different, they act different. They appeal to a different audience than the old silver boxes that were only about capacity and backup.

So, we have taken the two brands now that we have both of them within our control. Maxtor will be about data back-up and data security and Seagate will be all about creativity and freedom. How to use your data, how to take your data with you, how to have access to your data, your content? We live in a media rich world.

So, it’s a fascinating time for us. The other thing that’s really important about this product announcement we have today, is that we’ve put a five year warranty on all of these products. It’s no longer that you get a one year warranty on an external storage device. They’re not just storage devices, they are really data movers, they are content places, places you can feel comfortable about what you do with your rich media. So, given that the rich media is very valuable to people, it’s usually pictures, videos and music, most of that non-recreatable. So, it’s valuable to people. Five year warranty gives them more confidence in their ability to have that safe.

Michael Johnson – PodTech
Well, it’s a real statement because I know that with drives that I have bought in the past maybe it has a one year guarantee. Now, this is — they usually last beyond that, but still I guess the idea that this stuff that you’re talking about, I mean, it’s – whether it’s working as a professional in audio and video production or whether you are just backing-up and storing these memories now more and more. One year doesn’t seem like it’s valuing my life very much.

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Well, you are absolutely right about that. It’s fascinating as we look at this, you think about the days when we grew up and mom would take all the pictures and put them in a shoe box. That was the data aggregator. Well, today, the pictures don’t go in a shoe box because they are digital. So, you have to have comfort, confidence and the feeling of security about where you are putting them. So, we give you the ability to in fact, in our Free Agent pro-products we have the ability, the functionality in that product to auto upload a synchronized folder to your Shutterfly account. So, you could actually print or create photo products with your pictures, but now your pictures are replicated not only on your hard drive and on your external storage data movie or Free Agent pro-product, but also on your Shutterfly account. You’ve got it in three places; you’re safer than you would be if you just had it on your hard drive.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now that was one incidence of, one instance about where I was leading with my next question is, you’d mentioned before these drives are going to act different. Let’s catch up with that concept a little bit because I don’t think that people are used to thinking about their drives acting in a certain way besides may be quaming (ph).

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
You are absolutely right. We’ve lived in a world where the drives historically have just been expansion vehicles. You go buy an external disk drive and plug it into your computer because you ran out of space on your hard drive. That’s not really a very active product; it’s not really doing anything for you. In fact, you’re doing something with it. So, we’ve put software and feature sets on these new products that do things for you. So, on the portable products there’s a portable environment, you actually can take your settings, your personal files, your personality with you.

So, your passwords are there, your Internet favorites, your portable applications, your email files. So, you can take your portable drive when you go to your mom’s house and you want to show her the pictures you took. You don’t have to take or carry your laptop computer. You can take your portable drive to your friend’s house and share your music files. You can take your portable drive on your next business trip and still have access to your email.

So, portability is a key point here, it’s no longer just a storage receptacle, it’s giving new functionality and future sets. When you move up to the Pro-products and the desktop products, which sit in your home on your desk and looks so elegant next to your flat panel display and your nice sleek keyboard. We give you the ability to have an online storage account, so you can synchronize your data into the cloud. In fact, when you buy a Free Agent pro-product, we’ll give you 500 megabytes of space online for six months for free, included with the purchase of the product. You are always free to buy more expansion space, you are free to extend it beyond the six months. We are hoping to prove to people that there is a value in this online capability, but that online capability gives you anytime anywhere access.

So, again, if you buy the pro-product, you put your pictures on it and then you synchronize them into your Internet disk in the cloud. Then you go to your mom’s house and you’ll login into your Internet disk in the cloud and you’ll share your pictures. She can see your stuff, without you actually having to carry it. So, we are giving you a really different way of managing and using all the stuff that you’ve created, it’s not just about storage expansion, it’s about usability.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
But you got a major hurdle to overcome that with this idea — sure people are taking more digital pictures now, they are really — they are getting clearly, they just –actually in some ways don’t have a choice right now about where they are going, as far as generating digital content, but then you got a trust factor. You’ve got to really be able to put trust in that box and folks are used to I think traditionally since, this is a whole another era, it’s a whole new hard drive. They have to get to know this; this object and it relate to it in a different way. How is Seagate going to cross that hurdle?

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Well, it’s all very true. Today people are taking those pictures and putting them on their PCs, which could be generic PCs, they don’t know what’s inside and they’re trusting that. The scary thing is they don’t even know they are trusting it and they won’t know they have a problem until they loose something.

So, there is a lot of work that has to be done to message this and to educate people as to the value of the content on their computers. Those who are knowledgeable for the first time this last year finally valued the content on their computers as priceless because the stuff can’t be recreated. I can’t go back five years and take another picture of grandma with my child when she was an infant. I can’t do that and if I loose that, I’ve lost something that has tremendous sentimental value.

So, we’ll do a lot of work in educating people as to the importance of their personal content that they’ve created and that we want to make sure they never loose. So, with the Seagate brand, you’ve number one, you’ve got the largest disk drive manufacturer in the world. We have a very long history of data integrity and data protection and security and now we are bringing the five year warranty to that as well. In order to give people the comfort and confidence that we know what’s your stuff and we know it’s important to you and we will do everything to protect that, that we possibly can.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
John van Bronkhorst is the Executive Director of Seagate Branded Solutions. We are here at CES in Las Vegas, they are rolling out some new brands; the Free Agent line. You can take a look at them at Seagate.com and there’s a special area for CES things as well.

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
That’s correct.

Michael Johnson – PodTech
Also Maxtor Solutions has something as well.

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Maxtor Solutions is to look at all of that, all the products for data security and protection. We’ve got a broad range of products across both brands now to provide you with any need you may have.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
John thanks for being on the Podcast.

John van Bronkhorst – Seagate
Thanks very much.

Copyright ©2006 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Privacy policy

Tags: John van Bronkhorst, Seagate, Free Agent

Transcript:
Host: Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Guest: Diana Cartwright - Seagate

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
This is Michael Johnson, and we are here in the Seagate PodTech Bloghaus up here in the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada, I’m here with Diana Cartwright, Senior Director of marketing for the Seagate Branded Solutions, welcome to the Podcast, it’s great to see you here in Vegas.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
It’s good to see you again too.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Okay, now tell me a little bit now; you’ve got a situation with Seagate where you have a couple of things going. Seagate acquired Maxtor and now you’ve got two brands and you’ve got two ideas out there and how are you going to manage that because as the Senior Director of marketing, you’ve got I think a situation which is kind of interesting, it sounds like a delightful challenge but tell me a little bit about how Seagate is going to manage the two brands?

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Sure, actually it’s a really wonderful opportunity. So, with the Seagate Brand, obviously in the market place and the Maxtor brand, what we have announced here at the show is a whole new line of Seagate products that really allow you to have freedom with your digital content and on the Maxtor side, we still have a very award winning Maxtor One Touch Brand that is really all about backup, saving your data you know safeguarding it and what have you.

So what we’re really seeing is a real bifurcation of both brands and will they kind of branch in off into their own personalities if you will. So if you walk into our booth for example, on a show floor at CES, you’ll get to experience literally one side of the booth being freedom and talking about how you can have any time access to your data, wherever you go with the Seagate Brand and on the other side, really a digital reminder of safeguarding your data and making sure you back it up because every time you lose a piece of data you lose a piece of yourself.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Now you’ve had Maxtor, you’ve worked in both worlds here and then moving them both forward. How should people think; let’s think one about the other, we’ll take it one at a time. So if they are thinking on the Seagate side of their brand…

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Right, okay.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
What kind of the things, what kinds of applications should someone say, just a practical way of thinking about Seagate?

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Oh sure, sure I’m liking it too. I had actually one person ask me one time well, why would I want to have both brands, I think which is a valid question and when you look at it today in a way that we have been able to draw this new line of products because they are very different. So for example, I constantly have something in my purse that I can transfer data on and now with the Seagate new FreeAgent line, I actually have products that I can actually take with me, I can actually sync things to my own 500 MegaByte space in the cloud, if you will with the Seagate Internet Drive, on my FreeAgent product, I have their FreeAgent Go product, I can actually just pop in my purse, it has some applications to go right on there, I can plug it into any laptop and have my computing environment with me at any time.

So it really provides me this freedom of movement, take my data regardless of it’s photos, work files, whatever with me wherever I want to go. On the Maxtor side, we really want to enforce, like we always have with Maxtor marketing campaigns if you will, the fact that you really need to have two copies of your data, no matter what, right? I mean people now have multiple digital devices, so in my home alone, I think we have three digital cameras, my daughter just take pictures incessantly, right? So, I can’t imagine what will happen if I lost those photos and so we need to keep two copies of everything, no matter what and that’s really what Maxtor is about.

Its if I lost those photos of my daughter’s birthday party, I’ll like lose a piece of myself and so when you walk in and you see the visualness of what we’ve been to create with the marketing campaigns, on the Seagate side, there is these beautiful almost like art, photos of people with photos that are files around them , it’s about you being on, it’s your stuff whenever you need it and they’re like I said, like art they’re just beautiful. On the Maxtor side, you’ll see these very interesting eye catching pictures of people kind of in their everyday environment with little digital pieces missing from them.

So it kind of makes you stop and think, when you do lose a piece of data, you lose a piece of yourself. So you need the backup, I would argue, and then I also like to take my data with me.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Now, what’s the percentage out there right now of people that are not backing up and although we’ve talked a little bit about this last year with backup awareness month, and you’re doing some nice little things to make people aware that yes, they should back things up but what is the percentage of people that aren’t backing up out there right now, and it’s probably pretty major, I imagine.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
It’s pretty major, I think the last time we checked it was about over 50% of people who don’t backup, I think unfortunately it’s one of those things you don’t think about, we don’t think about it right? We buy our computer and we’re safe but you never know with natural disasters now, virus on your computer, you just need two copies of everything.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Or the simple cup of coffee, deadly cup of coffee, don’t forget about that.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Oh yeah, on your laptop or something, can you imagine?

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Yes, I can.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Oh oh, there is a story there.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
I know that, I mean we walk the streets and then in Down Town Urban Center asking people that they were backing up and surprising number of people, some people had, who’re really good about it because we are kind of in the heart of the technology area but a lot of people haven’t really thought about it. How should people really start to — how do you get that idea across, because it’s I know that the pictures are one thing but this is so much more is going to digital right now and folks that have the cameras and those folks that have they are just changing cards out right now because its still like film to them.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Right.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
How do you change that idea?

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Well, I think awareness is definitely the first and foremost thing in education. When we talk about over 50 people don’t backup, the people that do, I wonder if they do, because they at one point lost data. So really what we want to do is educate people so that they don’t lose data but we want to get upfront of that instead of behind it if you will.

So it’s really about education, so it’s really online, it’s working with our retailers and providing information on why it’s important and then of course with a lot of this new marketing campaign we have going on with these visual pictures of making people kind of stop and think, “Oh my gosh, yeah, these are pieces of my life”, I mean this is really about your memories, whether that’s a tax form you needed to keep or a birthday party invitation — I mean we all keep just — I keep the weirdest things sometimes. What would happen if I went to find them and they weren’t there and that I think is what we are really trying to convey with our marketing information.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
And I think it comes really as important as with the person of the year issue has kind of been convenient highlight to say that look you know, we are generating so much content right now, people are really starting to just produce more and more with YouTube or whatever but it’s not going to work and unless they have something to store it on and if they want to keep any of that, they are going to have to back it up somehow and I’m ashamed of the method that I haven’t backed up enough.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Oh say it as yourself.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
But I’m obviously going into this year definitely do it because more and more the kids are getting older and these are, as you’re saying these are the pieces of our lives that potentially could be going somewhere.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Forever, they could be gone forever.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
They could be gone forever.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Absolutely, and that’s one of the things we really focus on, with this dual brand strategy, it’s actually really nice, I mean because with the Maxtor stuff, with the legacy backup you got to have it, with this new creative assets if you will, if these photos of people having digital pieces missing from them, it is a really stop, “Wow! I really have some things here that if I lost, I would lose forever” and to your point about the Time Magazine that it’s all about you and having this reflection I think on the cover of Time Magazine, it really is when you look at people’s iPods, you can really tell a lot about somebody, by the music that they keep and the files that they have and it’s really about you and your stuff.

We look at the Seagate side, the brand we’re able to really tease them apart and show there is a completely different brands with different personalities and different solutions and so Seagate, yeah you have to back it up but now you got the freedom to take it with you wherever you want and we’ve been able to differentiate it also with it’s look and feel, the industrial design of the actual products themselves, they are beautiful, they have an amber glow that this cocoa brown; beautiful enclosure and between the two enclosure, there’s that amber light that glows and it kind of it breathes.

So it kind of comes in and out as a flash it breathes, so it’s just a beautiful piece of solution here, pieces (Ph) of technology, that allows you to go wherever you want and its kind of a fashion statement. I mean this is like, “Wow! Well, where did you get that?” “That’s really cool I want one of those.” So I think we’re creating something here that has immense opportunity.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Diana Cartwright, Senior Director of marketing for Seagate Branded Solutions and we are here at CES here in the Seagate PodTech Bloghaus and if you like to check out some of the things, folks can go to the Seagate.com and there is a special area that’s showing some of the latest things that are being shown here at CES.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Absolutely, you can also go to maxtorsolutions.com and check out the Maxtor Solutions as well.

Michael Johnson - PodTech News
Diana Cartwright, thanks for being on the Podcast.

Diana Cartwright - Seagate
Thank you.

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