Things are shaking up over at Seagate, with the company announcing several large changes due in the near future. The company announced earlier in the week that they had plans to depose the current CEO of Seagate, Bill Watkins, replacing him with Stephen Luczo. While refusing to detail the reasons for the departure or how it would impact the company going forward, they did reveal another restructuring plan: layoffs.
Along with stripping themselves of a CEO, they are also firing 800 workers, or around 10% of their total staff, in anticipation of a slowdown in demand for Seagate products. Currently, the company is expecting a loss in stock value and a lower than expected revenue for the last quarter. The company cites, aside from a weak economy, increased pressure from Western Digital. Curiously enough, they also mention that part of the loss in sales comes from them being "late" in incorporating new technology. Could this be a sly way of saying that they were too late to certain emerging markets, like SSDs?