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Hardware Seagate's CEO on Dell, Apple and Porn
Brandon Hill (Blog) - December 1, 2006 6:08 PM

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51 comment(s) - last by Slaimus.. on Dec 8 at 1:33 PM

William D. Watkins - Chief Executive Officer

Seagate's outspoken CEO cuts through the bull

We've heard from some outspoken CEO in the past, but Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology, might just take the cake. In a recent sit down with FORTUNE, the proud Texan gave his opinion on everything ranging from where he sees disc drive technology going to how his company is promoting porn.

Watkins held nothing back and has no problem talking about some of major players in the tech industry these days. On Dell, Watkins said "The 90s were all about the enterprise, and that's why Dell did so well. Now, it's all about the consumer, and that's why Dell is having problems. They don't understand the consumer. They want a competitor to the iPod and what do they do? They go with Creative."

Seemingly, Dell is making up for lost ground by trying to dedicate more focus to its consumer base whereas Apple has been on that page ever since its conception. "Apple figured out a long time ago that this business is about the consumer, and the world finally caught up to them. Most companies have a technology and go looking for a problem to solve. Steve Jobs looked at what was happening - people were loading music onto their computers and wanted to take it with them - and he built a product to solve that problem," said Watkins

When asked about the never ending Blu-ray vs HD DVD debate, Watkins simply stated "Let them fight it out. They can have it. As far as I'm concerned, it's really a battle of electronic storage versus hardware."

But probably Watkin's most humorous comment came when asked about what were the ambitions of Seagate as a company. But quite frankly, his company is simply in business to sell storage solutions to customers and it's not exactly rocket science. "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

Watkins did let one sizeable nugget of information out though about Seagate's future product plans. It will release a 1 terabyte hard drive in the summer of 2007 with a price tag of around $700.

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Hmmm

By creathir on 12/1/2006 10:09:40 PM , Rating: 5

To credit Steve Jobs the ENTIRE MP3 player industry... seems absurd to me. MANY players were out WELL before the iPod... (I had one... from RCA of all places! Good 'ol Lyra)

I understand the sudden introduction of a music store was a fantastic idea, but it really was a matter of necessity. Napster and file sharing was on the way out by way of court order, so a huge void was left. I can GURANTEE more songs were downloaded with Napster than iTunes... It is a certainty. Anything and everything was available on it... and everyone I knew used it. Most used it to make CDs, but when MP3 players came out, about half of my friends started getting them. (And thinking back on it... the Lyra was $230 for a player that included a 64MB flash card.... my how things have changed)

I would NEVER credit Apple with the success of the MP3 player. Not in a million years. They did not open up the world to music over the Internet. They did not introduce the world to the MP3 player. What they did, was introduce the world to over priced hardware, songs that were no longer free, all packaged neatly with aggravating advertisements.

Not what I would call... innovation.

- Creathir

RE: Hmmm

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 12/2/2006 12:23:45 AM , Rating: 5

quote:
I would NEVER credit Apple with the success of the MP3 player. Not in a million years. They did not open up the world to music over the Internet. They did not introduce the world to the MP3 player. What they did, was introduce the world to over priced hardware, songs that were no longer free, all packaged neatly with aggravating advertisements.

Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he sure did revolutionize it.

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RE: Hmmm

By creathir on 12/2/2006 2:28:27 AM , Rating: 4

Sure, but people never credited him with inventing it either.

The way Watkins is speaking, it is as if Jobs and Jobs alone created the DAP industry, which is hardly the case.

- Creathir

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RE: Hmmm

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 12/2/2006 2:56:50 AM , Rating: 2

Maybe not in absolute terms, but most Americans had no clue what a DAP was until the iPod came around.

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RE: Hmmm

By FITCamaro on 12/2/2006 8:53:13 AM , Rating: 3

I worked at Best Buy long before the iPod came out and I can assure you, everyone knew what an MP3 player was. They were selling off the shelves long before Apple's little DRM encrusted iPod joined the ranks.

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RE: Hmmm

By Googer on 12/2/2006 12:21:53 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
William D. Watkins - Chief Executive Officer

Is it just me or is William D Watkins wearing a John Ritter disguise?

http://www.goingfaster.com/darkthoughts/john_ritte...

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RE: Hmmm

By AzureKevin on 12/5/2006 1:33:46 AM , Rating: 2

I kind of noticed the resemblance, actually, but it's small.

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RE: Hmmm

By solgae1784 on 12/2/2006 12:38:17 AM , Rating: 2

Since when was music ever been free? You pay for the CD/cassette/LP to listen to music. You sound like artist should be making their songs completely free......

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RE: Hmmm

By creathir on 12/2/2006 2:31:19 AM , Rating: 2

Nope, I don't believe that at all. However, this was what most of the people interested in music were doing in the late 90s. Napster was THE thing... everyone downloaded... everyone participated.

Sorry if I was coming off like I was advocating the use of services such as Napster, but I was just pointing out that the fall of Napster is what created a void for iTunes to fill. Without that void, I highly doubt iTunes (or the iPod for that matter) would have made it. The idea of PAYING for downloaded music at that time was repugnant to say the least.

- Creathir

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RE: Hmmm

By lobadobadingdong on 12/2/2006 9:30:03 AM , Rating: 3

I actually bought more cd's during the Napster days than any other time of my life. (I guess I bought around 1200-1500 cd's in a 2 year span...I never actually counted them) I would check out a few songs from an album and if I liked more than 1 song from the group I'd go buy thier cd (nothing sucks worse than shelling out $14 for a cd that only has 1 good song on it). When all the nonsense of suing the consumers started I stopped buying cd's entirely. I ended up selling nearly all of my cd's as the nonsese got worse as it sickened my stomach both as a consumer and as a buisness owner. Now I just tune in to a radio station and put up with commercials.

Before anyone jumps my case, everyone I knew did the same thing, it was taboo to just get music for free. I agreed that those sites should have been shutdown after learning more about the Copyright laws whether I agree with them or not that is the law. However the consumers shouldn't have been targeted the way they were.

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RE: Hmmm

By protosv on 12/3/2006 11:00:41 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
I bought around 1200-1500 cd's in a 2 year span...I never actually counted them) I would check out a few songs from an album and if I liked more than 1 song from the group I'd go buy thier cd (nothing sucks worse than shelling out $14 for a cd that only has 1 good song on it).

Wait, lemme get this straight, you were somehow able to drop nearly $17,000 on music over 2 years? Wish I had your job.

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RE: Hmmm

By rykerabel on 12/4/2006 4:15:04 PM , Rating: 2

Read his post, he doesn't have a "job"

quote:
both as a consumer and as a buisness owner.

owning or at least running a business is the only way to get rich or richer.

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RE: Hmmm

By mindless1 on 12/2/2006 4:25:14 AM , Rating: 1

Since when? Always. Ever since the first artist sang in public, right up until today on the radio. You're not paying to hear music, you're paying for control over when and how you listen.

Artists should be paid of course, what you are willing to pay for the content, not what an industry collaboration has decided is the fixed price.

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RE: Hmmm

By michael2k on 12/2/2006 9:55:37 AM , Rating: 4

I would make the analogy with the Nintendo Wii:
There have been similar devices before, but none so simple that the average (100 IQ and below) person could use. Apple made four design decisions that simplified MP3 players so much that anyone could figure them out:
1) Fast serial port synching... no more waiting for hours to load 3gb of music
2) Simplified UI... allows one handed use, allowed anyone to use
3) Small form factor+high storage... makes music more mobile, compared to the large Nomads or the low storage flash players of the time
4) Cached music index... allowed for faster navigation, longer battery life, and free localization

There were no other MP3 players at the time that combined all those features: You had the high storage Nomad, but it was bulky (as big as a Mac mini), slow (USB1), and hard to use (11 buttons). You had the flash MP3 players that had small storage capacity (64mb or 128mb) and hard to use (you had to resynch every day if you wanted new music).

It took years for Creative to adopt the smaller 1.8" and 1" HDD. Apple did not invent the MP3 player... but I think it isn't absurd to credit him with the industry, in the same way that Microsoft deserves credit for the PC industry.

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RE: Hmmm

By Griswold on 12/2/2006 10:19:44 AM , Rating: 1

You hit the nail on the head.

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RE: Hmmm

By bokep on 12/2/06, Rating: 0

RE: Hmmm

By Wong Fei Hung on 12/3/2006 5:33:53 PM , Rating: 3

"Steve Jobs looked at what was happening - people were loading music onto their computers and wanted to take it with them - and he built a product to solve that problem"

Rather than "Steve Jobs saw the success of the Rio and decided to capitalize on it"

Seems a clear case of a claim of invention to me.

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ouch

By slash196 on 12/1/2006 6:54:28 PM , Rating: 2

That man is uncanny; I have two Seagate HDs in my comp and yes, they're both to store porn (and pirated games).

RE: ouch

By JWFokker on 12/1/2006 8:36:07 PM , Rating: 3

Of my 1.1TB of porn storage capacity, 600GB of it is provided by Seagate, the remaining 500GB is from WD. But I will make sure Seagate gets my porn storage business in the future.

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RE: ouch

By osalcido on 12/2/2006 3:21:25 AM , Rating: 2

I'd love to access this incredible library of yours. Willing to share? :^)-

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RE: ouch

By FITCamaro on 12/2/2006 8:58:23 AM , Rating: 2

Wow. If you need that much porn, you probably aren't getting any in the real world(your hand doesn't count). Leave the computer screen and venture out into what we like to call, outside. The women there you can actually touch. Sure, their bodies might not be as perfect or their breasts as perky, but its a hell of a lot more fun.

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RE: ouch

By AnonymousCoward07 on 12/6/2006 6:26:35 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Wow. If you need that much porn, you probably aren't getting any in the real world(your hand doesn't count). Leave the computer screen and venture out into what we like to call, outside. The women there you can actually touch. Sure, their bodies might not be as perfect or their breasts as perky, but its a hell of a lot more fun.

Your logic is condescending and naive: it's like assuming people with too many CDs must not get out to concerts much.

Plenty of people with healthy & happy sexual relationships have porn collections.

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Without porn

By Nik00117 on 12/1/2006 7:05:22 PM , Rating: 2

Weird me and my cisco teacher were talking about this today and he said even wehn the internet first came out they had porn sites a lots of them.

Porn is huge factor to the internet as we know it today. They gave the internet the business cause lets face it, at one point porn made up a estimated 50% of the internet. (what i heard from a friend)

RE: Without porn

By jtesoro on 12/1/2006 9:04:48 PM , Rating: 2

It's been said that porn has been key to mass adoption of a lot of technologies. VCRs, DVDs, the Internet, electronic commerce (credit cards over the net) among others. Not sure if it has/will play a major role in mobile video and mobile commerce as well.

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RE: Without porn

By FITCamaro on 12/2/2006 9:04:33 AM , Rating: 2

It's not only been said its true.

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RE: Without porn

By lemonadesoda on 12/2/2006 6:54:51 PM , Rating: 3

Then there should be a Pr0n National Holiday to celebrate the advances brought to technology! Perhaps replacing Thanksgiving or Independence Day.

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RE: Without porn

By twjr on 12/3/2006 4:35:55 AM , Rating: 2

Porn and internet gambling are the two largest reasons for the expasion of the internet. I guess you could say that without our little, or for some very large, vices we may not even be typing here now.

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Dammit Creative!

By daftrok on 12/1/2006 8:01:42 PM , Rating: 4

I hate how Creative isn't taking enough advertising risks with its mp3 players. They are cheaper, they sound better, and you don't need a driver to transfer music from point A to point B. When will I see Creative commercials? The only advertisement I've seen was a billboard in 'frisco, and behind that was an iPod billboard! Argh!

RE: Dammit Creative!

By michael2k on 12/1/2006 8:50:11 PM , Rating: 2

Creative is just slow.

It took them three years to transition from desktop HDD to PCMCIA HDD (three years after the iPod!) and it took them 10 months to debut a 1" HDD after the iPod mini... and five years after such HDDs had been available from IBM! It also took them several years to release a form factor you could slip in a pocket (The Zen Sleek I believe using a normal laptop HDD).

There is a reason the iPod is taking marketshare; they take reasonable risks and they polish everything. Then of course Creative can't seem to miniaturize their Zen Vision:M for heck...

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RE: Dammit Creative!

By UnFaZeD on 12/3/2006 9:46:56 PM , Rating: 2

looks like they dropped the ball, after being the first ones in the market with the Nomad

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RE: Dammit Creative!

By Slaimus on 12/8/2006 1:33:47 PM , Rating: 2

Diamond was the first to market with the Rio. Creative had the first MP3 CD player.

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I love this guy.

By abandonhope on 12/1/2006 6:44:05 PM , Rating: 2

Refreshing view on technology and demand for it. His comments were honest and accurate, but I think the Board of Directors may want to send him to a brush-up class on tact. He may not have to worry too much about that given his position, but one shouldn't underestimate cavalier statements like his when you supply very large computer companies with storage products. Imagine if Dell decided to go only with WD or Hitachi for a year or to just to zing Seagate! Not likely to happen, but you never know.

RE: I love this guy.

By abandonhope on 12/1/2006 6:45:19 PM , Rating: 2

Oh yeah, we'll all need that 1TB HDD once porn goes mainstream HD!

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RE: I love this guy.

By bamacre on 12/1/2006 8:39:44 PM , Rating: 2

Actually, I have seen more and more Samsung SpinPoint drives in dell systems lately. Dimensions usually have WD or Samsung, and the Precisions, either Seagate or Samsung.

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RE: I love this guy.

By lennylim on 12/2/2006 2:24:10 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Imagine if Dell decided to go only with WD or Hitachi for a year or to just to zing Seagate!

Well, fortunately he has nothing but good words for Apple. I don't know about Michael Dell, but we all know how vengeful Steve Jobs can be.

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RE: I love this guy.

By Griswold on 12/2/2006 10:23:40 AM , Rating: 1

If he had to pick between Dell and Apple, I'm sure he would go with Dell (or HP or Lenovo or FSC). :P

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$700!!!

By kuyaglen on 12/1/2006 8:43:07 PM , Rating: 2

$700 for 1 TB! That doesn't seem like its going to drive down the price of the 750gig drive to sub 250 levels :(

RE: $700!!!

By timmiser on 12/1/2006 8:54:39 PM , Rating: 2

That's what I was thinking, and that is still 6 months away? What is with this snails pace for larger capacity drives?

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RE: $700!!!

By Samus on 12/1/2006 9:07:10 PM , Rating: 4

Snails pace? we're talking about 1TB in a single fucking drive! That's amazing...

It'll realistically debut at $500. They're just saying $700 so you keep buying the 750GB's in the mean time.

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Actually...

By timmiser on 12/1/2006 8:27:50 PM , Rating: 5

You can click on Mr. Watkins picture and it will open up a super large hi-res version of his head via a pop-up.

Kinda like porn.

Heh

By skyyspam on 12/1/2006 9:52:27 PM , Rating: 3

I like this Watkins guy's style. He apparently believes that the demand for larger hard drives is mostly fueled by people wanting to store...junk. Not ultra-professional companies wanting more digital real estate for databases, digital project storage, etc., but the average pack-rat consumer--who simply can't stand the idea of deleting his six-year-old, pre-divx porn movies that he hasn't watched since...about that long ago.

Anyway, the guy definitely has guts, style, and most importantly, vision. He comes closer to fitting the profile of an ideal CEO than anyone else I can think of off the top of my head.

RE: Heh

By kmmatney on 12/2/2006 1:20:17 AM , Rating: 2

Too true. I've nearly filled up 250GB home computer's hard drive with stuff. However at work, I have a laptop with a 60 GB hard drive that still has plenty of room, even with my entire software development library, tens of thousands of scientific data files, and emails archives going back 8 years, and hundreds of word documents. All that stuff is small, compared to a few DVD rips. This guy definately knows what the marketplace.

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Gotta luv the Honesty

By JumpingJack on 12/1/2006 8:17:01 PM , Rating: 2

Seagate had quality drives, fell off, and regained the upper hand... today I will buy Seagate for this interview alone....

Thanks for the honesty, and, BTW, I don't use your drives to watch pr0n.

Apple & Porns

By crystal clear on 12/2/2006 11:23:32 PM , Rating: 2

"We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

Read this-Apple & porns

Apple Sells "Refreshed" Laptop Filled With Porn To 11 Year Old Girl
Reads like this-
An Apple customer was shocked, shocked, when he bought a Macbook from the London Apple Store for his 11-year old daughter, and the desktop was full of pornographic JPGs.

Source-

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/apple/apple-se...

Apple & Porn-2nd

By crystal clear on 12/3/2006 7:47:09 AM , Rating: 2

A Hard Lesson in Privacy
Scott Granneman, 2006-11-27

Scott Granneman looks at a hard lesson in personal privacy and security through the lens of a very public and well-known female television show host in Europe.

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/424/1

Quote-

Boy have I got a story for your SecurityFocus column. My brother-in-law just bought a used Intel 20" iMac. The seller was a nice looking blonde, who didn't wipe the disk. You can probably see where this is going, but it's better than that.
....................................
unquote-the rest read it in the column.

Conclusion- It can happen to anyone-oh damn those Hard Disks.

Who doesn't love porn?

By btxmonty on 12/1/06, Rating: -1

RE: Who doesn't love porn?

By Crysalis99 on 12/1/06, Rating: -1

RE: Who doesn't love porn?

By IMPoor on 12/1/2006 7:47:09 PM , Rating: 2

I like new porn daily. The same 40GB gets old.

All kidding aside, there are much better things to store on a hard drive other than porn. I do alot of (non-porn) video editing from my camcorder, take alot of pictures, and have a bunch of music. I have a 300GB drive thats always full. I will always burn DVDs, and eventually HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, for backup but nothing beats having the data on the hard drive. Right now I could easily fill a 2TB drive with my archived DVDs. The idea of having them all on one HD would be awesome to me.

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RE: Who doesn't love porn?

By SunAngel on 12/1/2006 10:29:01 PM , Rating: 4

well, since no one here is going to tell the truth why they need more and more hard drive space, i will be the first to admit i rip every single dvd i can from netflix's and blockbuster's library in an attempt to own, albeit illegally, as many movies as i can. i convert them to divx, store them on a central nas network, and use mce 2005 on all my machines to shift them around my one-man-to-many-computers home network. i went heavily in debt to acquire my setup. but the movies kept rolling out and i have to have my hard drive space. you can have the porn, i make my own porn in-house, LIVE!!!! (everything i just wrote is fiction)

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