Speed is of the essence says Seagate

Seagate Technology will speed up its time to market in a bid to emerge from the slump that has affected the storage sector this year.

Speaking at the Hambrecht & Quist Technology Conference in San Francisco, president and chief operating officer Steve Luczo admitted: 'Time to market is now our number one objective and is where the company has failed. We are starting to regain the gap but we won't sacrifice quality.'

Despite conceding that many of Seagate's products have shipped late, the storage giant plans to launch a hard drive for sub-$1,000 PCs this year, codenamed U2, and a 2.5Gb drive for PCs and workstations, codenamed Taos.

Luczo said that although the industry would like the sub-$1,000 PC market to be less important, as it offers lower revenue and margins, it cannot be ignored.

'We see strong demand for U2 from four large OEMs. Our guess is that (sub-$1,000 computers) will be 20 to 25 per cent of the desktop mix, but how much of that is new business is anyone's guess,' he said.

He refused to say how much U2 will cost, but sources speculated that the product will offer 2Gb for about $100.

Luczo also said Seagate's Quinta optical storage division is set to release products later this year and indicated that Seagate is to poach senior executives from rivals.