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Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

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Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#51

Post by bunderbunder »

jseliger wrote: post #49
ig1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the largest seller of online display advertising in the world (bigger than Google), and they've still got a relatively immature advertising platform.

Hard drives are also commodities, which means they sell near cost. If Samsung charges $10 more, people buy from another maker. Facebook is almost the exact opposite: its userbase means that, right now, there is no homologous replacement (including Google+, because they don't have the users). Which doesn't mean FB is "worth" what it's worth—to me it seems overvalued, but then again no one is holding a gun to my head a…

On the other hand, online user bases are notoriously mercurial. Facebook's valuation implies an assumption that Facebook won't fall victim to the forces that have claimed every social site to come before it.

That's a pretty gutsy assumption, considering Facebook could plausibly be seriously damaged by something as simple as kids deciding they don't want to hang out at the same place their parents do.

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#52

Post by smackfu »

jseliger wrote: post #49
ig1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the largest seller of online display advertising in the world (bigger than Google), and they've still got a relatively immature advertising platform.

Hard drives are also commodities, which means they sell near cost. If Samsung charges $10 more, people buy from another maker. Facebook is almost the exact opposite: its userbase means that, right now, there is no homologous replacement (including Google+, because they don't have the users). Which doesn't mean FB is "worth" what it's worth—to me it seems overvalued, but then again no one is holding a gun to my head a…

Further problems with the hard drive market:

1) SSDs are taking over the market, and that favors flash suppliers like Samsung. 2) All the research dollars to increase sizes just drive the prices down. 3) At some point soon, there will be no need for further drive size increases. Unless someone comes up with a more space-hungry format than 1080p video.

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#53

Post by jlarocco »

vasco wrote: post #27
antirez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, what disappears is the Facebook "potential" to make money, and the valuation is done thinking at this possibility. Now if you look at it in this way, billions of people using Facebook can be monetized probably much better in the long run compared to selling a new HD from time to time to millions.

What amazes me is that people actually think this is the right way to look at things...

Meh. It's an opt-in system.

If somebody is more concerned with something else there's nobody forcing them to focus on making money.

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#54

Post by fletchowns »

ghc wrote: post #36
vondur wrote: post #5

I'm surprised that they sold the SSD business. I'm guessing that's primarily what Segate was after.

They did not sell their SSD business. They sold their Hard Drive business.

"The agreement gives Seagate select elements of Samsung’s hard drive business, including Samsung’s high-capacity M8 hard drives and semiconductors used to make solid-state drives"

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#55

Post by sunchild »

jlarocco wrote: post #53
vasco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is that people actually think this is the right way to look at things...

Meh. It's an opt-in system. If somebody is more concerned with something else there's nobody forcing them to focus on making money.

Actually, it's not purely opt-in. Remember when our tax money "rescued" the banks because of their reckless lending/investments less than two years ago?

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#56

Post by ghc »

fletchowns wrote: post #54
ghc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not sell their SSD business. They sold their Hard Drive business.

"The agreement gives Seagate select elements of Samsung’s hard drive business, including Samsung’s high-capacity M8 hard drives and semiconductors used to make solid-state drives"

Samsung will continue to make SSDs and other products based on its NAND business, but Seagate will gain NAND supplied by Samsung that it needs to launch its own SSD business along with acquiring the entire Samsung HDD business.

This was probably the only way for Seagate to complete the deal. Samsung's NAND business is probably more valuable than the entirety of Seagate.

Here's the rundown: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=...

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#58

Post by ig1 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #51
jseliger wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard drives are also commodities, which means they sell near cost. If Samsung charges $10 more, people buy from another maker. Facebook is almost the exact opposite: its userbase means that, right now, there is no homologous replacement (including Google+, because they don't have the users). Which doesn't mean FB is "worth" what it's worth—to me it seems overvalued, but then again no one is holding a gun to my head a…

On the other hand, online user bases are notoriously mercurial. Facebook's valuation implies an assumption that Facebook won't fall victim to the forces that have claimed every social site to come before it. That's a pretty gutsy assumption, considering Facebook could plausibly be seriously damaged by something as simple as kids deciding they don't want to hang out at the same place their parents do.

You do realize you could say the same thing about pretty much every company in existence. No-one ever stays on top forever, it's a question of how long you can stay on top for and how much profit you can generate over that period.

Re: Samsung Sold its Hard Drive Business to Seagate for $1.4 Billion

#59

Post by andrewfelix »

bentlegen wrote: post #16
andrewfelix wrote: post #11

In the short term this is good for Seagate. In the long term though, I think this is good for Samsung. More and more of our memory needs are being met by online storage. Sure we'll need NAND going into the future. But are we going to need it in the quantities that we currently demand when cloud storage is becoming more and more popular?

Online storage providers still need to purchase hard disks.

Online storage providers don't use NAND, and they won't be consuming drives at the same rate as consumers.
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