Computer Industry August 2007 Article Seagate, Cisco, Sun

Direction Of The Computer Industry May 2009

The technology industry is undergoing wide-spread change. Economic troubles in many countries have led to changes in the business of technology. Companies such as Seagate, Cisco, and Sun, are finding ways to adapt. 2009 will prove to be historical.

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Seagate began back in 1979. Over the years, Seagate has played a significant role in digital storage. Seagate had its first big success in 1980 with a 5.25 inch form factor hard drive. Seagate managed its way through the new millennium finding itself in the middle of the consumer market with a demand from non-business customers looking for lifestyle products. Seagate is Thinking Green these days more than ever.

By 2005, Seagate made a stronghold at consumer trade shows like the Consumer Electronics Show ( CES ). Back in 2006, Seagate was targeting the surf crowd by producing a story that highlighted a world renown surfer Shane Dorian. Seagate followed up in 2007 with coverage of their products alongside The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the music industry. In 2008 The Seagate website featured Director Yun-Chan Lee from Taiwan in an article that highlighted the advantages of having enough storage to avoid deleting video. In the same year, Seagate highlighted the travels of their product. Some of the exotic trips included Baja California, battle fields, a Mt. Everest climb, and a Mt. Cho Oyu climb in Tibet.

In April 2009, Seagate dedicated one rotation of their 3 banner ad rotator to the Green marketing rave. Seagate felt it was important to point out a few ways they are Thinking Green. In addition to low power consumption drives, Seagate claims to have combined building retro fits, improved equipment design, and process flow that reduced the company's electrical consumption by 17 percent in the first year (2007). From a product standpoint, Seagate has released the Pipeline HD series of hard drives. These hard drives are produced with 50 percent recycled material and do not contain halogen or pvc. The Pipeline was developed for consumer electronics such as DVR and media center applications , audio jukeboxes, and Home theater PCs. One might say that Seagate is going beyond typical methods of going green. With Earth Day fresh in our minds, recognized in April by Americans, Seagate recently (2009) announced that they are eliminating quarterly dividends in order to increase liquidity. Seagate anticipates that this action will reduce cash outflows by approximately $60 million annually.

Featured products on Seagate.com 4/22/2009:

Pipeline HD Series

Seagate ST31000533CS

Seagate ST31000322CS

Seagate ST31000424CS

Constellation Hard Drives

Seagate ST9500430SS

Seagate ST9500431SS

Seagate ST9500530NS

Cisco Systems Inc. is making moves in the face of a bad economy. Announcements of product line expansion by Cisco is what is causing waves in 2009. Strategic Partnerships with Pre-existing server manufacturers could be strained. Industry Channels and Businesses will be tested.

Mid-April 2008, Cisco's featured 4 product lines were emphasized: Firewalls, Virtual Private Networks, Intrusion Prevention, and email/web security. This was at a time when the global economy was beginning a major down-turn. In April 2009, when many companies were experiencing closures and lay offs, Cisco announced that they would be expanding their product line by entering the server market. Cisco is currently experiencing financial losses but they are digging into their resources to spawn new beginnings. Cisco plans to cut back on spending and avoid new hiring to offset company losses associated with the economy.

But what about Cisco's long term server partners? Cisco has enjoyed a tightly woven relationship with most of the major server manufacturers for many years, as the hardware goes hand-in-hand. Will server manufacturers counter by partnering with other router companies or will they introduce routers of their own? No one is sure at this time although time is sure to tell. At this time, Cisco.com is still displaying partner logos associated with long-time strategic partners like HP and IBM.

What we do know is that all of these companies have made significant efforts to integrate their names with popular culture. Technology companies like Cisco have strengthened ties to youth and business in part, through featured customer online articles. Cisco's testimonials section is also known as the Human Network. Over the years Cisco has devoted web space to highlight clients like Thunder Sk8 company ( skateboard manufacturer ) and WeatherBug.com. Will companies seek out Cisco for their solutions? Will Cisco's channel of Integrators, Solution Providers, and hardware resellers get behind Cisco? Some think that Cisco will sweeten their channel incentives and agreements in order to deeply penetrate the market.

Featured products on Cisco.com 4/23/2008:

Routers

Cisco ASR 1002

Cisco ASR 1004

Cisco ASR 1006

Blade Servers

Cisco B-250

Cisco B-200 M1

Cisco UCS 5100 Chassis

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Sun has held an important place in the computer industry. Like Cisco, Sun Microsystems is part of ground breaking technology news in 2009. Declining sales and a down economy ultimately precipitated change. Software has been the the most significant influence over a company primarily known for hardware.

Sun has been the long time alternate solution to Microsoft-IBM software / hardware solution. Sun has provided people with workstations and servers and is popular for their SPARC and x64 hardware. Over the years many levels of technology have built around the Sun Operating System / platform as well.

At the end of 2008, Sun had to lay off over 1,500 workers and issued announcements about mandatory unpaid vacation time. Going into 2009, their slump in sales continued and the US economy was experiencing more corporate casualties. So with the company wavering during a bad economy, the offers began to materialize. Surprisingly IBM made an offer to buy Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA). Although Sun did not accept the offer, the action drew considerable attention. Then another large industry player made an offer. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) , a mission-critical database application provider, put down an irresistible offer. A $7.4 billion dollar transaction that included $9.50 per share of common stock sealed the deal. Most Oracle customers utilize the Sun Solaris Operating System (OS) thus making the offer strategic. In addition, Oracle based its Fusion Middleware on Sun Microsystems' Java language. By Oracle saving Sun, Oracle may have saved themselves.

The Sun Microsystems website was highlighting MySQL database applications in April of 2008. Database applications proved to be in important and integral part of Sun Microsystems' business solutions. MySQL is one of the non-hardware acquisitions, through the Sun deal, that is complimentary to Oracle's existing high-end business. MySQL is a database application that supports a shared multi-user environment for your data. Sun spouted 60,000 MySQL downloads per day in 2008. MySQL has been used for entry level solutions and many to the enterprise level applications as well. MySQL can run on Windows, Linux, Red Hat, Novell, Solaris, and SCO operating systems. For those that are technically inclined or have access to technical resources, the MySQL application is FREE. Back in 2008, Enterprise level MySQL support ranged from $595.00 to $4,999.00+ annually*. Oracle Corporation does plan to tune and enhance their pre-existing version of a database management application, Oracle Database, by further optimizing it with the Solaris OS.

Along with Solaris, Java, and MYSQL there are a few more applications in the bag. NetBeans, Sun Studio, OpenOffice and the Zmanda Backup Solution. Many Sun software solutions are supported by Independent Software Vendors certified through the Sun Partner Advantage Program. Support Channels can be a valuable asset as long as Oracle can manage the integration successfully.