Seagate cutting HD warranties

[sekker]

Bye bye 5 years.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/16/...arranties/

[mattkime]

i thought they already did this.

[Chakravartin]

Yeah. WD too.

They've bought off too many competitors. The market is concentrated too tightly. Anything one does to cut costs and reduce service is quickly matched by the other. Don't expect HD prices to drop quickly as production ramps up again.

[mattkime]

what are SSD warranties like? I hope I've bought my last hard drive. Well, except for my networked raid.

[decay]

SSDs are 2-3 yrs, right?

[Speedy]

Seagate will be lucky to survive the Thai flood disaster.

[Black]

Speedy wrote:
Seagate will be lucky to survive the Thai flood disaster.

Why?

[sekker]

Speedy wrote:
Seagate will be lucky to survive the Thai flood disaster.

They are living it up off the disaster that hit their competitors hard.

Seagate will have a 2-3 year windfall. Unless their Irish plant gets hammered by a disaster!

[deckeda]

"By aligning to current industry standards Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers rather than holding long-term reserves for warranty returns".

I've got a newsflash for Seagate. The only 3 innovations or features customers really care about are capacity, price and warranty. And Seagate just cut the only one out of the three is has true control over.

This is good news for the competition, who are no longer at a disadvantage.

[sekker]

deckeda wrote:

"By aligning to current industry standards Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers rather than holding long-term reserves for warranty returns".

I've got a newsflash for Seagate. The only 3 innovations or features customers really care about are capacity, price and warranty. And Seagate just cut the only one out of the three is has true control over.

This is good news for the competition, who are no longer at a disadvantage.

Consumers care about a FOURTH feature - availability. Right now, Seagate is the only horse in town. People will buy them even with reduced warranties.

This is probably smart business for them. There's another company most purchase from on this board whose stock warranties are 1 year when the rest of the computer industry offers 3 year without an 'AppleCare' tax.