Seagate Technology

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Seagate Technology, based in Scotts Valley, California, U.S., is a large maker of hard drives for computers ranging from personal computers to high-end servers and mainframes. Most of its sales are to computer manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM, and Sun Microsystems.[1]

PR and advertising

The Society for New Communications Research gave two awards to Seagate Technology for Seagate's PR and advertising activities. The awards, announced November 1, 2006, are for the use of social media such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other forms of participatory communications for public relations, advertising, and politics.[2]

Seagate has an active listening program which closely monitors and measures online discussions to know what customers are thinking and then to know how to influence perceptions of the company. "Multiple departments within Seagate benefit from the intelligence gathered from online communities. The collective feedback helps shape future communications, campaigns, product introductions and customer care programs." For a particular product, the company wanted to "maximize the volume and quality of media coverage and online buzz". An elaborate series of launch stategies and tactics were used that made use of new media tools "to seed campaign messaging and product information", a company media release on the awards stated.[2]

Lobbying

Seagate Technology spent $80,000 for lobbying in the first half of 2007. All of the money went to the lobbying firm Patton Boggs.[3]

Personnel

Key executives and 2007 pay: [4]          Options
exercised
Stephen J. Luczo, Chairman    N/A    N/A
William D. Watkins, Chief Executive Officer    $1,000,000    $6,850,000
David A. Wickersham, Chief Operating Officer    $744,000    $2,060,000
Charles C. Pope, Chief Financial Officer    $700,000    $4,800,000
James M. Chirico, Jr., Executive Vice President of Disc Storage Operations    $500,000    $8,330,000

Directors

Accessed August 2008: [5]

Contact details

920 Disc Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
Phone: 831-438-6550
Fax: 831-429-6356
Web: http://www.seagate.com

References

  1. Seagate Technology Profile, Hoovers, accessed December 2007.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Press Release "Seagate Wins Two New Media Awards from the Society for New Communications Research", Seagate Technology, November 13, 2006.
  3. Seagate Technology lobbying expenses, Open Secrets, accessed December 2007.
  4. Seagate Technology Key Executives, Yahoo Finance, accessed December 2007.
  5. Directors, Seagate Technology, accessed August 28, 2008.