Seagate 2009 Annual Report Download - page 6

Table of Contents
PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
We are the world's leading provider of hard disk drives based on revenue. We design, manufacture, market and sell hard disk drives. Hard
disk drives commonly referred to as disk drives, hard drives or HDDs, are devices that store digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating disks with
magnetic surfaces. The performance attributes of disk drives, including their cost effectiveness and high storage capacities have resulted in disk
drives being used as the primary medium for storing electronic data.
We produce a broad range of disk drive products addressing enterprise applications, where our products are designed for enterprise servers,
mainframes and workstations; client compute applications, where our products are designed for desktop and notebook computers; and client non-
compute applications, where our products are designed for a wide variety of end user devices such as digital video recorders (DVRs), personal
data backup systems, portable external storage systems and digital media systems. In addition to manufacturing and selling disk drives, we
provide data storage services for small- to medium-sized businesses, including online backup, data protection and recovery solutions.
Industry Overview
Electronic Data Storage Industry
The electronic data storage industry is comprised of companies that manufacture components or subcomponents designed for electronic
data storage devices and companies that provide storage solutions through a variety of technologies such as disk drives, tape storage and
semiconductor-based storage technologies such as flash memory. Participants in the electronic data storage industry include:
Major subcomponent manufacturers. Companies that manufacture components or subcomponents used in electronic data storage devices
or solutions include companies such as Fuji Electric Device Technology Co., Ltd., Showa Denko K.K. and TDK Corporation, which supply
heads and media to disk drive manufacturers; LSI Corporation and Marvell Technology Group Limited, which supply application specific
integrated circuits (ASICs); and Hoya Corporation, which supplies glass substrates.
Hardware storage solutions manufacturers. Companies that transform components into storage products include disk drive
manufacturers such as Seagate, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Toshiba Corporation and Western Digital
Corporation; magnetic tape storage manufacturers such as Quantum Corporation; and semiconductor storage manufacturers such as Intel
Corporation, Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SanDisk Corporation and STEC, Inc., whose operations include integrating
flash memory into storage products such as solid state drives (SSDs).
System integrators. Companies that bundle and package storage components such as storage hardware and software into client compute,
client non-compute or enterprise applications. Client compute original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) include Acer Inc., Apple Inc.,
Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company and Lenovo Group Limited; client non-compute OEMs include Apple Inc., DIRECTV Group, Inc.,
Microsoft Corporation, Motorola, Inc., Scientific-Atlanta Inc., a subsidiary of Cisco Systems Inc., Sony Corporation and TiVo Inc.; and
enterprise storage system OEMs include EMC Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company and NetApp, Inc. Distributors who in turn integrate
storage hardware and software into end-user applications are also included in this category.
Storage services. Another area within the electronic data storage industry is services and solutions related to the backup, archiving,
recovery and discovery of electronic data.
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