Well This is a Certainty Now

You couple this that the Boss reported earlier with the mindset below and you know where the bus is headed. Over a cliff. –

A US financial analyst expects Seagate to announce the closure of one or two US plants by the end of May, predicting 800 to 1000 redundancies.

The target at Seagate is to drive its quarterly operating expenses below $300m, according to Stifel Nikolaus analyst Aaron Rakers. This will be achieved, he thinks, by shutting down one or two US plants, which will achieve a faster operating expense reduction than closing overseas facilities. There could be up a thousand employees laid off as a result.

Rakers also considers that Seagate has caught up with Western Digital and other competitors on small form factor areal density, with 320GB/platter capacity levels being reached. An announcement of 2.5-inch products with 320 and 640GB capacities could occur in the third quarter of this year, with shipments in the fourth quarter or very early 2010.

It was fun watching the American Tech scene. Most of it will head overseas in short order to avoid American taxation. For the Giants like HP and IBM maybe never. But for middle tier players its the South China Sea rim or die. All I can say is — “Thanks for the memories”.

Linky.