U.S.-based Seagate Technology's $1.4 billion acquisition of Samsung Electronics Co's loss-making hard disk drive (HDD) business pits it head-to-head with Western Digital Corp in an industry that has been dogged by price wars. The sector is battling persistent sales growth declines and faces a longer-term threat from wireless tablet devices such as Apple's iPad that use more power-efficient flash, or solid state, drives (SSD). However, Seagate Chief Financial Officer Patrick O'Malley downplayed those concerns, saying increasing use of data would drive demand for storage. "We look at tablets as a good thing as they will spur data-rich consumption, which is certainly good for storage and HDD storage," he told Reuters by telephone.
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