Founded by Al Shugart at the dawn of the computer revolution in 1979, Seagate was the first company to build 5.25-inch hard-disk drives for the PC and helped define the hard-disk drive business. Almost three decades later, disk drives remain the core business of the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company.

In June 2006, Seagate unveiled new lines of hard drives geared toward quenching the thirst for high-capacity handhelds, digital media management and cross-platform syncing.

Barely a year after the buyout of PC data backup software vendor Mirra Software, Seagate did it again with the acquisition of rival disk maker Maxtor for US$1.9 billion in May this year.

In September this year, the storage giant announced plans to invest S$1.3 billion (US$833.5 million) to build a third media plant in Singapore to address growing global demand for hard-disk drives.

For the first quarter fiscal 2007 ended September 29 this year, the disk drive giant posted a 78 percent dip in profit due to costs related to the buyout of Maxtor. Revenue grew by 34 percent to US$2.8 billion, from US$2.09 billion in the year-ago quarter. In Asia, first-quarter sales rose 40 percent to US$1.26 billion from US$897.8 million a year earlier, according to the company.

This company is listed in Storage Management.