Seagate 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

Table of Contents
PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
We are a leading provider of electronic data storage solutions. Our principal products are hard disk drives, commonly referred to as disk
drives, hard drives or HDDs. Hard disk drives are devices that store digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating disks with magnetic surfaces. Disk
drives continue to be the primary medium of mass data storage due to their performance attributes, high quality and cost effectiveness. In
addition to HDDs, we produce a broad range of electronic data storage products including solid state hybrid drives ("SSHD") and solid state
drives ("SSD").
Our products are designed for enterprise servers and storage systems in mission critical and nearline applications; client compute
applications, where our products are designed primarily for desktop and mobile computing; 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.
We continue to make strategic investments in order to expand our storage solutions, enter new market adjacencies, and expand our technical
expertise. As a result of recent acquisitions, our product and solution portfolio for the enterprise data storage industry includes storage
enclosures, integrated application platforms and high performance computing ("HPC") data storage solutions. Our storage subsystems support a
range of high-speed interconnect technologies to meet demanding cost and performance specifications. Our modular subsystem architecture
allows us to support many segments within the networked storage market by enabling different specifications of storage subsystem designs to be
created from a standard set of interlocking technology modules.
In addition to our data storage products and subsystems, 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, software and services for enterprise cloud, big data and computing platforms.
Markets
The principal markets served by the electronic data storage industry are:
Enterprise Storage. We define enterprise storage as those solutions which are designed for mission critical and nearline applications.
Mission critical applications are defined as those that are vital to the operation of large-scale enterprise work loads, requiring high
performance and high reliability storage solutions. We expect the market for mission critical enterprise storage solutions to continue to be driven
by enterprises utilizing dedicated storage area networks in an effort to reduce network complexity and increase energy savings. We believe that
this will continue to drive demand for more energy efficient, smaller form factor solutions. These solutions are comprised principally of high
performance enterprise class disk drives with sophisticated firmware and communications technologies.
Nearline applications are defined as those which require high capacity and energy efficient storage solutions. We expect such applications,
which include storage for cloud computing, content delivery and backup services, will continue to grow and drive demand for solutions designed
with these attributes. With the increased requirements for storage driven by the creation and consumption of media-rich digital
4