Guess Who’s Courting Seagate

When was the last time you saw a story about disk drives on the cover of The New York Times? I didn’t check the archives, but I’d bet….never.

As a young reporter for Computer Systems News two decades ago I trolled the watering holes and industrial parks of Silicon Valley in search of stories about disk drive companies. I was fortunate enough to establish great, long-time relationships with the founders and senior executives of virtually each and every disk drive vendor — which back in the 1980s was about 50 companies. None of those companies was as much fun to cover as the market leader, Seagate Technologies. The combination of their market leadership, their high-visibility founders (Al Shugart, Finis Conner, Doug Mahon and Tom Mitchell) and the hyper-valuated public stock market for storage companies made it a treasure trove for a reporter.

Goodbye Network Computing

Many of you probably saw the announcement last week that CMP was laying off more than 200 people and folding several publications. Many of you probably also realize that most of the team here at Microcast worked at CMP at one time in their careers. The CMP announcement hurt a little because some of my friends got laid off and one of my former publications, Network Computing, is being folded. I wrote the original business plan for Network Computing and was the original publisher. It’s also where I met Gary Bolles, my partner here at Microcast. I don’t have any particular insight into what’s going on at CMP, but I know that the President of CMP, Steve Weitzner, is a solid, thoughtful executive and he’s got his hands full trying to reposition the company in the face of the near-collapse of print advertising.