I know Al a little bit, I've met him and I've sat in several meetings with him and listened to him talk. It's hard not to like the guy, he's so down to earth.
But I do agree, his ego probably is getting in his way. He needs to do some major shakeup, but it essentially means admitting he was wrong about some things.
This thread seems to dwell on the lost market share in the high end, but they're in trouble on the low-end as well. They are behind the density curve, Quantum and WD are way ahead and pulling away. If you don't believe me, study the specs. You'll find Quantum and WD achieving the same capacity points as Seagate, but with fewer disks and heads.
I attribute much of this to the way the low-end was given to the Conner guys. Conner was a failing company, the whole mind set there was cost is everything and time to market on new capacity/density points was unimportant. You just can't make money in this business that way. The guy that gets there first makes the money, even if his product has a slightly higher cost structure. Market windows are just too small to be late. Quantum and WD have this figured out, Conner didn't, and now Seagate is just like Conner.
Big Al needs to admit he made a mistake and fix the low-end. Problem is, it was his decision to go with Conner and his ego won't let him do what needs to be done. |
