14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that the myth of the decline of the hard disk drive market is not a myth at all, as Seagate has mirrored its rival company in reducing the warranties of some of its hard disk drives.
Some may remember that, about a couple of days ago, we wrote about how Western Digital had dropped the warranty-purging bomb.
Of course, one could argue it would be more accurate to say that it was more of a warranty downsizing procedure than anything else.
Now, though, the current leader in the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) market has been joined by its immediate rival, Seagate.
As was inevitably discovered by the online community, Seagate has reduced the warranties of some of its own product lines.
The company actually did this to more product collections that Western Digital did.
WD changed the plans for Scorpio Blue, Caviar Blue and Caviar Green, from 3-year to 2-year warranties, or will do so starting January 2012.
Seagate's move consisted of the some Desktop and Notebook Bare Drives going from five to one year, Nearline units switching from 5 to 3 years and Barracuda XT and momentus XT drive changing from 5 to 2 years.
“By aligning to current industry standards, Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers,” the company said.
The purpose is to supposedly “be more consistent with those [warranty terms] commonly applied throughout the consumer electronics and technology industries.”
Given the sudden shortage problem on the HDD market, HDD makers don't really have much choice but to prepare, in advance, for bigger financial challenges.
There is also the matter of solid state drives and the need for some extra HDD performance and feature development if the latter are to stay competitive, especially with higher prices in play.
Thus, diverting funding from the warranty and support divisions to the research and development teams is a fairly logical step.