It's never too late to jump aboard the bandwagon. Data storage giant Seagate Technology
That's after years of sitting on the SSD sidelines while competitors like Western Digital
Though late to the party, Seagate is arriving in style. Using extra-fancy, high-quality memory chips, Seagate's Pulsar drive should outduel the finest SSD products from Western Digital, Intel
So Seagate has joined the enterprise segment of the SSD market, but the world's leading supplier of hard disks is staying out of the consumer market until further notice. You won't see Seagate Pulsars at Newegg anytime soon (hurry up and go public already, by the way!), though a few errant drives might end up at online auctions. The likes of Intel, Imation
In the end, I fully expect SSDs to become the standard storage format, with hard disks being relegated to a low-budget, high-capacity niche. Seagate will embrace the new market by then, of course. The question is, will it be too late for the old-guard leader to join the revolution, or will Seagate's brand strength transfer to the new product segment unharmed?
I'm leaning toward a new world order where Seagate's stature is diminished, but what do you think? While SSDs may be making quite a bit of progress, there’s still a long way to go before they’re cost-competitive under most circumstances with the good old-fashioned hard disk drives of today. Discuss in the comments below, and boost your karma balance at the same time.