Seagate yesterday agreed to pay a $300 million fine for selling hard disk drives to Huawei, settling US government officials' allegation that shipments to the Chinese company violated export controls imposed in 2020. The fine is "the largest standalone administrative penalty" ever issued by the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the agency said.

Apple is in talks to provide about US$3 billion in capital for Bain Capital's bid for Toshiba's memory-chip unit, adding to financial support from Dell, Seagate Technology and SK Hynix, according to people familiar with the matter.

To reduce costs, Seagate said it would lay off 600 employees, which could save the company about $90 million.

Seagate is closing a design center in South Korea, according to its 8-K homework submitted to US financial watchdog, the SEC.

Hard-disk drive maker Seagate Technology said it would cut more than 2,000 jobs as it shuts down its Suzhou factory in China.

In a regulatory filing with the Financial Supervisory Service, SK Hynix said, "We are looking into various options, including setting up a joint venture with Seagate Technology, to strengthen the mid and long-term competitiveness of our nonvolatile storage flash chips. But no decision has yet been made."

Seagate Technology said its earnings fell 49% in the latest quarter as the bottom line was hit by expenses related to the disk-drive maker's cost-cutting efforts and other items.

Seagate Technology, a maker of disk drives for computer storage, expanded plans to cut jobs to 14 percent of the workforce, seeking to reduce costs to weather a prolonged slump in demand.

Seagate Technology, a maker of disk drives for computers, said it's cutting about 3% of its workforce in an effort to reduce costs amid a slump in demand for PCs.

Hard-disk drive storage provider Seagate on Monday lowered its revenue and margin guidance ahead of the release of its fourth quarter earnings report later this month.

Analysts said an OCZ acquisition would boost Seagate's margins and help it establish a firmer foothold in the lucrative enterprise segment, where SSDs are gaining popularity.

Hard disk drive supplier Seagate Technology has provided a financial update, reiterating that demand for HDD units will exceed supply in 2012 in the wake of flooding last year in Thailand.

Seagate raised its forecast for the fourth quarter, providing a somewhat more optimistic view of the disk-drive component constraints that have affected the industry due to catastrophic Thai floods.

Seagate alleged that Western Digital and a former Seagate employee misappropriated confidential information and trade secrets.

"This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least..."

Seagate has shipped its one millionth solid state hybrid drive for laptop PCs after launching the product - Momentus XT - in spring 2010. Major computer makers including Alienware, ASUS, Dell, Sony and Toshiba now offer laptops powered by the 2.5-inch drive.

Samsung is looking to sell the unit for US$1.5 billion, but it may consider a deal under US$1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. A potential buyer is Seagate Technology.

"Hard disk drives will serve the bulk of the laptop market for many years to come as makers of solid state drives remain overstretched to meet ever-growing demand for laptop storage..."

Western Digital again shipped more disk drives than Seagate in the fourth quarter of 2010, although Seagate's stronger enterprise presence allowed it to top WD in overall revenues.

Shares of Seagate Technology soared 21% in pre-market trading Friday after the hard disk drive maker revealed it has received interest in being taken private.

The group aims to end a long and heated debate about the next big leap in disk technology and is expected eventually to include all drive makers and their component vendors.

We all know that for the absolute best throughput of storage available to us today, it's in solid-state-drives. The problem with SSDs is cost and the limited storage capacity in comparison to the magnetic solutions. But upcoming solutions from Seagate and Toshiba may be able to come up with something in between.

Currently Seagate makes a Pulsar SSD with a 3Gbit/s SATA interface. It fits in a 2.5-inch HDD slot in a disk drive enclosure. A PCIe-connected SSD fits into a server as a plug-in flash card and that's where LSI comes in.

Both Seagate and rival Western Digital have seen demand for disk drives return even as supplies of the devices remain low, pushing up profits.

Seagate's first 2010 fiscal quarter (ended October 2, 2009) brought cheering news and a better outlook as its numbers continue to recover and it beings sampling its solid state drive (SSD) with OEMs.

Seagate Technology now expects revenues for the September quarter to be at or slightly above the high end of its original guidance.

Seagate Technology said it will close its Singapore hard-disk-drive manufacturing plant by the end of 2010 and lay off 2,000 workers as a result.

Hard drive maker Seagate Technology raised its forecasts for margins and overall industry sales in the current quarter, citing a larger-than-expected increase in corporate demand for computers, and its shares rose 4%.

Shares of Seagate Technology tumbled to a 52-week low Thursday after the hard-drive maker posted disappointing second-quarter results and gave a third-quarter outlook below Wall Street's expectations.

Nearly 1,500 CEOs left their jobs last year, including 221 in the technology and telecommunications sector, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Seagate Technology on Monday shook up its executive ranks as the No. 1 maker of computer hard-disk drives replaced Chief Executive William Watkins with the company's chairman, Stephen Luczo. The move comes less than a week after Seagate said it would cut about 10% of its US-based workforce.